
'- n' 



40 



Glass 

Rnnk -P9P9UX 



MEMOIR 



OF 



S. S. PREITISS. 



vol.. II. 






MEMOIE 



OF 



S. S. PRENTISS. 



EDITED BY HIS BROTHER. 



H 



vol.. II. 



NEW YORK: 
CHARLES SCRIBNER, 377 & 379 BROADWAY, 

(SECOND FLOOK.) 

1857. 



vT 






> \ 



Ent«rkd according to Act of Congress, in the yenr 1855, by 
CHARLES SCR I BXER, 
hi the Clerk's Office of the U. S. District Court, for the Southern Dietriot of New Voik 

J 

I 
0^ 






W. [I TINSiiN, STKHKOTYrW*, 






CONTENTS OF VOL. II. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

Return to Washington— Letters— Speech on the Defalcations of Public Officers - 
Extracts— Description of a Speech on the Navy — Letters— His Congressional 
Life, ........••S 

CHAPTER XV. 
Reminiscences of Mr. Prentiss by Henry A. Wise, . * • .51 

CHAPTER XVL 
The Wilkinson Trial — Mr. Prentiss' Address to the Jury, . . . .66 

CHAPTER XVn. 

Return to Vicksburg — Resumes the Practice of Law — Letters — Is solicited to become 
a Candidate for the Senate of the United States— Correspondence on the 
Subject— Letter to the Whigs of Madison County— Interest felt in the Election in 
other Parts of the Country— Letter to him from J. J. Crittenden — The Canvass — 
Letters, .......... 114 

CHAPTER XVm. 

Letters— Presidential Election of 1S40— Letters— Mr. Prentiss' Exertions— Visits 
the North— Invitations to attend Whig Conventions and Mass-Meetings — 
Speeches at Portland and Newark— Anxiety to hear him— Returns Home by Sea 
—Canvasses Mississippi as Candidate for Presidential Elector— Letters. . 149 

CHAPTER XIX. 

Domestic Correspondence— His Marriage — Letters— His Course in Relation to the 
Gubernatorial Election of 1S43— Visit and Letter from Henry Clay— Letters, 185 



Tl CONTENTS OF VOL. II. 

CHAPTER XX. 

Mississippi Repudiation — Mr. Prentiss' Opposition to it — His Popular Addresses on 
the Subject — Argument at Fayette against the Doctrine that one Generation can- 
not bind another — Col. Joseph B. Cobb's Reminiscences of a Speech at Jackson 
before the Whig Convention of lS-4.3 — Letter to the Poet Wordsworth — Mr. Words- 
worth's Reply — The Question of Repudiation finally decided by the Supreme 
Court of Mississippi, ........ 289 

CHAPTER XXL 
Reminiscences of Mr. Prentiss by Balie Peyton, ..... 271 

CHAPTER XXII. 

Recollection of him in 1843-4 — Speeches at a Whig Convention at New Orleans — 
Visits the North — Political Addresses during his Journey — The Presidential Elec- 
tion of 1844 — Subject-matter of Mr. Prentiss' Addresses — Return South, and 
Speech at New Orleans on the Fine Arts — Letters — Invitations to attend Whig 
Conventions and Barbacues in other States — Visit to Nashville — Letter from 
Ex-Governor Jones — Speeches at Natchez, Jackson, and Vicksburg — Disappoint- 
ment at the Result of the Election, ...... 292 

CHAPTER XXIIL 

Decision of the Supreme Court of the U. S. involving his Title to the VicksDurg Com- 
mons — Letters — Removal to New Orleans — Public Dinners tendered him on leav- 
ing Mississippi — His Settlement in New Orleans — Withdrawal from Parties and 
Devotion to his Profession — His Legal Career — Anecdotes — Trial of Phelps, the 
Robber — His Character and Attainments as a Lawyer and Advocate, . 354 

CHAPTER XXIV. 

Address before the New England Society of New Orleans — Letters — Address on 
Behalf of the Starving Poor of Ireland — Death of his Eldest Sister — Letters- 
Address to the Returned Volunteers of Gen. Taylor's Army — Letters, . 395 

CHAPTER XXV. 

New Year's Letter to his Mother — Difficulty with a Grandson of Henry Clay — His 
Account of the Affair — Reminiscences of it by Balie Peyton and Richard T. Archer 
— Letter from Mr. Clay — State of the Country early in 1848 — Questions growing 
out of the Mexican War — Mr. Prentiss' Speech at a Meeting to nominate Dele- 
gates to the Whig National Convention — His Exertions during the Canvass — 
Views of Slavery and the Wilmot Proviso — Gen. Taylor — Letters. . . 434 

CHAPTER XXVL 

Mr. Prentiss' Character as a Popular Orator — The Sources of nis Power — Miscon- 
ceptions on the Subject — Resemblance between him and Patrick Henry — Pecu- 
Ilailties of his Oratory— Its Strength lay chiefly in the Subject-matter of his 



CONTENTS OF VOL II. 



V« 



Addreases— His Political Opinions— Distrust of mere Politicians— His Viewa 
respecting the Form of our Government— It is not a simple Democracy— Its 
Practical Methods— The Will of the People not found in Primary Assemblies, or 
Mass Meetings; but only in the legitimate Action of the Executive, Legis- 
lative, and Judicial Authorities— American System of Liberty essentially Histo- 
rical, and Peculiar to Ourselves— Evils in the working of the Government- 
Executive Patronage— Extracts from Calhoun on the Subject— Debasement of the 
Presidential Office— His Opini. u and Abhorrence of Demagogues— Extract from 
Aristotle — His Patriotic Hopes, ....... 4G7 

CHAPTER XXVII. 

Personal Traits— His Disregard of Money— His Generosity— His Interest in Young 
Men and Kindness to them— Character of his Friendships— Sympathy with the 

Poor, the Sick, and Afflicted — Letters addressed to him by Strangers His 

Domestic Life, ......... 503 

CHAPTER XXYIIL 

Letters — Severe Illness — Visits the North with his Family — Reminiscences of this 
Visit— Fishing Excursions and Rides about Newburyport — His Interest in the Hun. 
garian Struggle— Trips to Boston, New Bedford, and Mawha's Vineyard — His 
Regard for Old Men — His Conversational Talent — Returns South— Letters — Rapid 
Failure of his Health — A Reminiscence by Col. Cobb — Devotion to his Profes- 
sional Labors — Is invited to address the Story Law Association — Letters — 
Approach of the Final Struggle— His last Appearance in Court— Letters to his 
Wife — Sudden Attack— Is removed to Natchez— The Closing Scene, . . 524 



APPENDIX. 

Proceedings of the Bar of New Orleans, and Eulogy by J idge Bullard, 

Extracts from the New Orleans Delta, 

Notice by J. P. H. Claiborne, Esq., . 

Proceedings of the Bar of NatcheB, . 

Proceedings of the Bar of Jackson, 

Eulogy on S. S. Prentiss by Judge Mc Caleb, 

Letter from Henry Clay, . . . 

Extract of a Letter from J. J. Crittenden, , 



563 
570 
572 
573 
674 
575 
680 
681 



X 



MEMOIR OF S. S. TRENTISS. 



-«► 



CHAPTER XIY. 

Return to Washin^on— Letters— Speech on the Defalcations of Public Officer - 
Extracts— Description of a Speech on the Navy — Letters— His Congressio' 1 
Life. 

Mt. 30. 1838-9. 

He thus announced his return to Washington, in a letter 
dated December 18, 1838 :— 

I arrived in the city last evening, in good health and spirits. 
I came by the way of New Orleans, Mobile, Montgomery, 
Cljarleston, &c., and had a tedious, but in some respects pleasant 
trip ; having never before travelled through the same section of 
country. I was detained by professional business, which pre- 
vented me from being here at the opening of the session; but do 
not regret it, as nothing of much importance has yet transpired. 
I merely drop you this line in great haste, to apprise you of my 
safe arrival, and shall in a day or two write again. 

TO HIS SISTEE ANNA 

Washington City, Dec. 28, 1888. 
Mt Dear Sister : — 

I wrote a hasty note upon my arrival here last 

week, promising to write again in a few days. I have delayed, 

VOL. II. ] * 



10 MEMOIR OP S. S. PRENTISS. 

expecting to spend Christmas day in New York, and to write 
from there. In this anticipation I was disappointed. Our 
House adjourned over only for two days, and at the time of 
adjournment was engaged in an interesting discussion, in which 
[ was desirous of participating; of cour^^e I had to give up 
my intention of going to New York. Yesterday I made 
a speech ; my text was the corruption and profligacy of the pre- 
sent Administration, and I did not spare the lash, in exposing their 
folly and wickedness. The recent defalcations of Swartwout and 
others formed the subject of debate, which has been very warmly 
carried on for several days. I was honored with a very crowded 
and attentive auditory, and spoke about three hours. I do not 
know that I shall speak again during the session. I am heartily 
tired of the place, and should rejoice to return home to-morrow. 
There is nothing new, and the Metropolis is extremely dull. 
A place less interesting, at least to me, could not be easily found. 
Every day's experience confirms me in the wisdom of my reso- 
lution to retire from public life, which is principally character- 
ized, at this time, by ignorance, discourtesy, and profligacy. I 
wish you all a happy and a merry Christmas, and wish I was 
with you to partake of tlie good feelings and good cheer which 
always accompany this pleasant season. You must write me 
very often this winter, if your health will permit — but of that 
you must be extremely cautious, and if you find writing injurious 
you must omit it, though it will deprive me of much gratifica- 
tion. I am glad that Abby enjoyed her visit to New York so 
much, and returned in such improved health. My love to you 
all, and a thousand kind wishes accompany it. 

Your afiectionate 

Skaegent. 

The speech, referred to in this letter, contains some things 
of which its author, on reflection, did not quite approve. 
The specimens which it gives of the correspondence carried 
on for several years between the Secretary of the Treasury 
and his defaulting subordinates, certainly justified the utmost 
severity of rebuke ; the records of the government, it is to be 



SPEECH ON DEFALCATIONS, *J 

hoped, afford no parallel to this extraordinary corre>!pon- 
dence. Bnt aside from the political satire and invective, 
which in such a case were legitimate weapons, there are 
expressions of personal contempt that exceed the proprieties 
of parliamentary discussion. Perhaps the bitter assaults 
which had been made upon him, during the year, by the 
official organ and other prominent Administration journals, 
were in part the cause of these sharp and scornful 
expressions. Even his lameness was not always spared by 
his political enemies. 

Mr. Thorpe very justly remarks ; " I find this speech, 
which is far from being equal to a hundred of his that were 
never noticed beyond the fleeting hour of their delivery, 
crowded with figures, all beautiful, but in many instances 
lacking that depth of thought for which Mr. Prentiss was so 
remarkable. To me it seemed, when I read it, more like his 
conversation when he was warmed up by social intercourse, 
than like a speech."* 

The following extracts, given with such slight omissions 
and occasional substitution of official for personal names as 
charity and respect for the dead seemed to require, contain 
the substance of this speech. It is a melancholy reflection, 
that the barbarous ''spoils system,^^ denounced by Mr. Pren- 
tiss with such righteous severity, should ever have been 
followed by his own party. Had anybody predicted, in 
1838-9, what has actually occurred, the good men of that 
party would, probably, have exclaimed with Hazael : *' But 
what ! is thy servant a dog that he should do this great thing ?"f 
The history of the last fifteen years shows only too plainly that 
the " spoils " poison has infected the whole country, engender- 
ing a frantic lust of office, which, unless speedily checked, is 
likely in the end to brutalize and destroy the national life. 

* American B&view, 1851. t 2 Kings, viii. 18. 



12 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

The House being in Committee of the Whole upon the 
President's Message (John Quincy Adams in the chair), 
Mr. Prentiss spoke as follows : 

Me. Chairman : — 

I had intended, on a former occasion, to express 
my views upon some of the topics embraced in the President's 
message, more especially the subject of the recent defalcations. 
I am, however, so unfortunate as to be viewed by the oflBcial 
eye of this House through an inverted telescope, and it is not 
often that I can obtain the floor. With much pleasure, there- 
fore, I avail myself of the opportunity at present afforded me. 
That portion of the message to which I shall principally turn 
ray attention, to wit, the defalcations of the public oflBcers, lias 
been already ably considered by my honorable friend from 
■Virginia (Mr. Wise), as well as by the distinguished member 
from Tennesi^ee (Mr. Bell). But it is a subject which cannot be 
too often or too thoroughly discussed. Its examination will, I 
am confident, eviscerate more of the principles upon which this 
Government has for some years been administered, and furnish 
us more valuable lessons for future guidance, than any other 
matter that can occupy our deliberations. I am sorry to observe 
a rapidly increasing hostility upon this floor to the discussion 
of great political principles. One would suppose, in listening to 
some gentlemen, that Congress was constituted, like a county 
court, for the trial of petty individual claims, instead of being 
the great political tribunal of the nation, whose province and 
duty it is, not only to notice all important events in the action 
of the Government, but to investigate the causes from which 
they have resulted. *» 

Defalcations of the most alarming character, and for an 
immense amount, carried on and concealed for a series of years 
by the collector of the principal commercial city of the Union, 
have been recently developed. The President has seen fit to 
call our particular attention to this case, and to make, in con- 
nection therewith, divers suar2;estions as to the best mode of 
preventing similar occurrences hereafter. 



SPEECH ON DEFALCATIONS. 13 

"It seems proper (says the President), that by an early 
enactment, similar to that of other countries, the application of 
public money, by an officer of the Government, to private uses, 
should le made a felony^ and visited with severe and ignominious 
punishment.''^ 

He further recommends that a committee of Congress be 
appointed to watch the officers who have the custody of the 
pubUc moneys, and that they should " report to the Executive 
such defalcations as were found to exist, with a view to a 
prompt removal from office, unless the default was satisfactorily 
accounted for." 

The Secretary of the Treasury has also given us a report upon 
this same subject, in which he expresses his astonishment that 
such an occurrence should have happened without his know- 
ledge ; exhibits, like the President, a most holy horror at the 
enormity of the offence ; and recommends the appointment of 
an additional tribe of officers to watch over those already 
in power, as the best mode of avoiding similar mishaps in 
future. 

To listen to the well-assumed astonishment of the President 
and Secretary at the discovery of Swartwout's peculations, one 
would readily suppose that defalcation, under the present 
Administration, like parricide among the ancients, had hereto- 
fore been a crime unknown, and consequently unprovided for 
by justice. Hearken to the philosophical musings of the Presi- 
dent on this point : 

" The Government, it must be admitted, has been from its 
commencement comparatively fortunate in this respect. But 
the appointing power cannot always be well advised in its 
selections, and the experience of every country has shown that 
public officers are not at all times proof against temptation." 

Wonderful sagacity! Unparalleled discovery! Who will 
now deny the title of " magician " to the man who has devel- 
oped the astounding fact "that public officers are not at all 
times proof against temptation ?" 

The embezzlements of Swartwout have caused this truth to 
flash upon the sagacious mind of the Chief Magistrate, and with 



14 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

philanthropic eagerness he recommends that we put a stop to 
this new sort of wickedness, bj making it a penitentiary 
offence. 

Mr. Chairman, if I should tell you that all this is sheer 
hypocrisy— gross and wretched pretence— a tub thrown out to 
amuse the popular whale, and divert his attention from the 
miserable and leaky canoe which bears the fortunes of this 
Administration ; if I should tell you that, during the last five 
or six years, a hundred cases of defalcation have occurred, more 
outrageous in principle, more profligate in character, than the 
one we are recommended to investigate ; that the President has 
continued defaulters in office, knowing their violations of duty, 
knowing their appropriation of the public moneys to private 
uses ; that the Secretary of the Treasury has, during that whole 
period^ habifeually connived at these defalcations, and extended 
over them the mantle of his protection; if I should tell you that 
these defalcations constitute a portion of the ^'•spoils system'''' — 
that system which has been to this Administration what his 
flowing locks were to Samson— the secret of its strength ; if I 
should tell you all this, I should tell you no more than I con- 
scientiously believe: no more than I shall attempt to prove 
before this House and the country. These defalcations I shall 
trace to their origin, and not stop to inquire so much into their 
amounts, as into the causes which have led to them. It is not 
the question. Where is the money? but, Where is the guilt? 
that I wish to investigate. The recent developments to which 
our attention is invited, are but some of the bubbles that are 
every day breaking upon the surface of the still and mantling 
pool. I shall not stop to measure their relative size or color ; 
but will, unpleasant as the task may be, dredge for the corrupt 
cause which lies at the bottom. These cases are but the wind- 
falls from that tree of Sodom — Executive patronage. Hereto- 
fore, the representatives of the people have, in vain, urged an 
examination into the character of its fruit; t)ut it has. been 
guarded with more vigilance than were the golden apples of the 
Hesperides. Now, our attention is solicited to it by the Presi- 
dent. Is he in earnest ? Let him but give us a chance to shake 



SPEECH ON DEFALCATIONS. 15 

this tree, and he will find his rotten pippins falling from every 
limb and branch. 

But our attention is called, particularly, to the case of 
Swartwout. The Administration has delivered him over to our 
tender mercies ; they have dropped him as the bear, when hotly 
pursued, drops one of her cubs, for the purpose of distracting 
the attention of the hunter, and so escaping with the rest of her 
young. I, for one, shall not be thus diverted from my purpose, 
but will follow the dam to her den, and there, if possible, crush 
at once the whole brood. 

Swartwout has been found out. This is the unpardonable sin 
with the present party in power. Their morality is the Spartan 
morality : not the theft^ but the discovery^ constitutes the crime. 
Sir, if every office-holder's mantle were thrown aside, how 
many, think you, would be found without a stolen fox fastened 
to the girdle? 

Mr. Chairman, I have no confidence that the President has 
recommended this investigation in good faith, or that his parti- 
sans here intend lo permit it. They dare not do it. They are 
not yet sufficiently maddened, scorpion-like, to dart the sting 
into their own desperate brain. IST®, sir, it is a mere ruse. 
Regardless of the maxim that " there is honor among thieves," 
the rest of the office-holders are very willing to- turn State's 
evidence against Swartwout, to gain immunity for themselves, 
and favor with the commonwealth. Let the Administration 
give us a fair committee, favorable to investigation, not packed 
by the Speaker ; throw open to us the doors of your Depart- 
ments — those whited sepulchres, within whose secret vaults 
corruption has so long rioted and revelled; 1^ your insolent 
subalterns be taught that they owe some allegiance to the laws ; 
compel them to submit their official conduct to a rigid examina- 
tion by this House: then, and not till then, will I believe them 
in earnest ; then, and not till then, shall I expect any good to 
come of investigation. But, sir, though little is to be expected 
from the action of this House, I anticipate much good from the 
discussion. This hall is the ear of the nation ; what is said here 
touches the auditory nerve of the whole country. Before thia 



16 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

mighty audience do I impeach both the President and the Secre- 
tary. * * I charge them with knowingly appointing and 
continuing in oflBce public defaulters — men who had appro- 
priated the public moneys to private use ; who had committed, 
in office, acts of as great moral turpitude, and deserving as much 
odium, as attaches to the case of Swartwout ; acts which the 
President now professes to think deserving of the penitentiary. 
I charge the Secretary, directly, with having caused, by negli- 
gence, and Icnowing, willful connivance^ some of the most import- 
ant defalcations which have occurred. I charge him specifically 
with having, in one case, literally watched a defalcation through 
a period of more than two years, and seen it gradually swell, 
during that time, to upwards of $100,000 ! I charge him with 
having permitted, in numberless instances, the repeated and 
continued neglect and violation of what he himself asserts to be 
the paramount duty, without removing from office, or even 
reprimanding the delinquents, I charge him with having, in his 
official capacity, received, and favorably considered, corres- 
pondence degrading to his high office, in^^ilting to him as an 
honest man, and of a corrupt and profligate character. 

Sir, the Secretary can only escape by th? plea of " non com- 
pos mentis^ Out of his pwn mouth I will oonvict him ; I will 
but let loose upon him the documents he him.self has furnished, 
and, like the hapless Acteon, he will be torn to pieces by his 
own hounds. 

Mr. Chairman, the cases which I am about ta examine, in sup- 
port of my positions, have been selected at random from the 
reports of the Secretary himself, and I present them merely as 
specimens; scores of the same sort— the phosphorescent glim- 
merings of corruption — break through the darknsss, and illumi- 
nate the path of the Secretary, from the very moment ho came 
into office. Should I treat of them all, the 4th of March 
would find me here, and the chronicles of the defaulters ^tOl 
unfinished. 

The first case treated of is that of a Col. S , Receiver 

of public moneys in Indiana. The report of the whole case 



SPEECH ON DEFALCATIONS. 17 

will be found in Document 142 of the second session of the 
24th Congress. After extracting the portions in point, the 
speech proceeds : — 

And what think yon was done with this defaulter by the moral, 
upright, sin-hating Secretary ? And what has been done by the 
President, who thinks this offence ought to be made felony, and 
punished with the penitentiary ? Before I answer this question, 
I will read you a letter from a then Senator of the United States, 
which will perhaps throw some light upon the subject. It will 
be perceived this letter was written during the examination of 
the office by Mr. West, and was doubtless intended to obviate 
the effect of his report : 

Madison, Augttst 3, 1836. 

SiH : — ^I am informed that some things are stated recently to the prejudice of 

Colonels , receiver at Fort Wayne, and I am requested to write you. In 

doing so, I can only say that I have been gratified in learning that his deposits 
have been made to your satisfaction ; and, if so, I hope that minor matters, if mere 
irregularities, will be overlooked. He is reputed to be an honest and honorable 
man, and I do not believe that he has intentionally either done wrong, or violated 
his instructions. It would to some eictent produce excitement if he were removed^ 
for he hoi many wai'm, and influential friends both at Fort Wayne and in 
Dearborn county, from toMch he removed to his present residence. Better let 
it be. With much respect, 

William H 

Bon. Secretary of the Treasury. 

"With much respect," ha! I doubt it. The honorable Sen- 
ator could not have had much respect for the honorable Secre- 
tary, or he would never have dared to write such a letter. Those 
two last sentences, like a lady's postscript, contain the whole 
substance : " It would produce excitement," forsooth, to remove 
thedefaulter ; " he has influential friends." " Better let it 5e." 
Sir, in these few words you may behold the morality, the policy, 
and the strength of the party in power. Like the flash language 
of the London swells, they open, to those who understand the 
true meaning, the whole secret of political roguery. Being inter- 
preted, the honorable Mr. H 's letter would read : " Dear 

Mr. Secretary : I am told Colonel S is a defaulter, and you 



18 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

are going to turn him out. You're a fool ; you must do no such 
thing : it would injure the party to turn him out; he's a strong 
pohtician, and has got a great deal of influence ; he isn't cheating 
us, it's only the people. If you know on which side your bread 
is buttered, keep him in office." 

And what says the^honest Secretary to all this ? Listen ; here 
is his answer : 

Treasury Department, September 7, 1836. 
Sib :— Your letter of the 31st ultimo is received, and I am happy to inform you 

that Mr. S 's explanations have been such that he will probably continue in 

office. 

Which, being interpreted, reads : 

" Dear Billy : — Who's a fool ? I never intended to turn him 
out. I only talked about it to gull the people, and make them 
think I was honest. He shall be retained." 

Ay, and he was retained ; and soon rendered such good ser- 
vice to his master as well approved the sagacity which refused 
to part with him. He has been continued in office by the Presi- 
dent, and is now Receiver at Fort Wayne. 

There is one more circumstance developed by this docament, 
to which I invite attention. The Secretaiy, in a letter of the 
23d of May to Col. S , tells him, " that any neglect or inat- 
tention to these requirements [that is, to deposit monthly the 
money on hand, and make monthly returns thereof], unless satis- 
factorily accounted for, will require of me, from a sense of official 
duty, that you be reported to the President, with a recommen- 
dation that you be removed from office." 

Now, in connection with this extract read the following letter 
from Col. S., written just upon the eve of the Presidential 
election, and about six weeks after the correspondence between 
H and the Secretary : — 

Receiver's Office, Fort Watnk, Oct. 27, 1836, 
Sib:— This is to inform you that I have forwarded to the deposit bank one hun- 
dred and four thousand dollars, in silver, there to remain untU I arrive with the 
gold and paper money. 

My democratic friends think I ought not to leave unUl after we hold ow 
Section for President, on the 1th November, which I h<ive concluded to await, 
and shall leoAie on that evening, or the neost morning, to depofsii, with all ths 



SPEECH ON DEFALCATIONS. 19 

funds on hand up to that time. I shall write you again before I leave. The sales 
are rapid ; mostly paid in gold and silver. My quarterly report will be forwarded 
by next mail, for last quarter, which ought to have been done sooner, only for want 
of help in the oflBce. Hereafter, I think I can get my reports off without much delay, 
after the close of the month and quarter. 

"What think you of this? The repeated injunction of the 
Secretary had been, that at the end of each month he should 
deposit the public money in hand; and if he failed to do so, 
without good excuse^ he should be removed from office. Well, 
sir, he fails to make his deposit in October, not by accident or 
necessity, but voluntarily ; and sends, in advance, his excuse to 
the Secretary. "What is that excuse ? It is, that his democratic 
friends thought he ought not to leave until after the election for 
President ; in other words, that his duty to the party was para- 
mount to his official duty ; that his obligations to Mr. "Van Buren 
(the candidate for the Presidency) were greater than his obliga- 
tions to the country, in whose service he was at least nominally 
employed. Accordingly, he neglected his most important duties 
for many days, that he might use in the election that political 

influence of which the honorable Mr.H speaks with so much 

unction. The Secretary receives this excuse ; recognizes its suffi- 
ciency, by not recommending his removal from office, as he had pro- 
mised to do, in case the reason should not be satisfactory ; and has 
thus convicted himself of entertaining and practising the profligate 
doctrine that interference in elections by an office-holder is not 
only justifiable, but involves a higher degree of obligation than 
the mere performance of official duty. It was not merely to 

exercise his elective franchise as a citizen that Col. S violated 

the injunctions of the Department; this right he could have exer- 
cised where his duty called him, as well as at Fort "Wayne. But 
that would not do; he had influence at the latter place, which it 
was important to the party he should exercise. Having thus 
violated his solemn official obligations, for the purpose of assist- 
ing the candidate of his party into the Presidential chair, it was 
of course no more than fair that the President should return 

the favor. He did return it. He continued Col. S in office ; 

and thus, at the same time, exhibited his gratitude, violated his 



20 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

duty, and prostituted his high station. This, Mr. Chairman, is 
but a specimen of that corrupt reciprocity of service which con- 
stitutes the hgature that binds together, hke the Siamese twina^ 
the Executive and the office-holders. 

Sir, the document from vrhich I have made the foregoing 
extracts is a public record, and was furnished to the Senate at 
the time when the Chief Magistrate was President of that body. 
Of course, he cannot plead ignorance of its contents. Yet, in the 
face of the report of West, by which it appears that the receiver 
had turned his office into a " shaving-shop " for himself and 

friends ; in the face of the profligate letter of H ; of the 

shameless avowal of the receiver himself that he neglected the 
paramount duties of his office for the purpose of exercising his 
influence at the election : in face of all this, the President neg- 
lects and refuses to apply the power of removal; and the 
unblushing partisan still remains in office, ready, doubtless, at 
the next election, to play again the game which proved so pro- 
fitable at the last. 

I will not longer detain the committee with this disgraceful 
case, but leaving it and the parties concerned to the judgment of 
the country, proceed to the consideration of another. I will 

take the case of H , receiver of the land office at Columbus, 

in my own State. In this instance I expect to convict the 
Secretary of the Treasury, not of a single isolated neglect of 
duty, but of a continued, daily, miserable winking and connivance 
at malversation and defalcation during a period of two years, 
implicating alike his honesty, his veracity, and his capacity. 
First, however, I will show what importance the Treasury 
Department attached to the duty incumbent upon collectors and 
receivers, of depositing in bank, at stated periods, the pubho 
moneys in their hands ; because it was from the continued viola- 
tion of this duty that the defalcation in the case of H , as 

well as in most others, occurred ; and because it will leave the 
Secretary no excuse, from the supposed insignificance of the duty, 
for the gross and culpable negligence on his own part which 
makes him, in justice and truth, a partie&ps criminis in the whole 
affair. 



SPEECH ON DEFALCATIONS. 



ii 



I boxd in my hand a book of some four hundred pages, entitled 
"Letter from the Secretary of the Treasury, transmitting copies 
of letters to collectors and receivers who have failed to comply 
with the laws and regulations for their government ; and, also, 
copies of reports of examinations of land offices since 1st Jan- 
uary, 1834," &c. It is Document 297, and was furnished the 
House by the Secretary on the 80th of March, 1838. It is 
the most extraordinary publication that ever fell under my 
observation. It is a moral, political, and literary curiosity. 
If you are a laughing philosopher, you will find in it ample 
food for mirth ; if you belong to the other school, you cannot 
but weep at the folly and imbecility which it exhibits. The Sec- 
retary must have been frightened when he compiled it, for it is 
without form, and darkness rests upon its face. It contains two 
hundred and sixty letters to defaulting collectors and receivers ; 
in some instances, from ten to twenty to the same defaulter ; 
yet, so curiously is the book constructed, that you must read the 
whole of it to trace a single case. Its contents are as strange as 
the " hell broth" that boiled and bubbled in the witches' caul- 
dron. From this fragment of chaos I shall proceed to extract 
and arrange such matter as is material to my purpose ; and first, 
to show, as I proposed, what importance the Secretary attached 
to the duty of depositing the public moneys in bank, at stated 
periods, so that they might not accumulate in the hands of the 
collector, and thus afford temptation to defalcation. 

He then proceeds to cite numerous extracts from letters 
of the Secretary to receivers in diflferent parts of the coun- 
try. The following are specimens : — 

February 28, 1835, in a circular to some fifteen receivers, the 
Secretary writes : 

I cannot omit the occasion to impress upon you the necessity of a strict atten- 
tion to, and punctual compliance with, the duties required of you in regard to the 
prompt deposit of the public money, and transmission of your returns ; and to 
say to you that the performance of those duties must be regarded as paramoimi 
to all others in your official station. 

Again, July SO, 1855, the Secretary writes to the receiver at 
Helena : 



22 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

The regular deposit of the whole of the public moneys, as prescribed by the 
regulations of the Treasury, and the punctual transmission of your accounts and 
monthly returns, are paramount official duties. 

I give these extracts from the letters and circulars of the 
Secretary, to show that the periodical deposit of the puhlic 
money was a paramount duty of the collectors and receivers. 
If, then, I show that the Secretary neglected to enforce the 
performance or punish the neglect of this 'paramount duty, it 
may be fairly inferred that he is either unwilling or incompetent 
to enforce, in his subordinates, the performance of any duty 
whatever. 

I come now to the case of H , which I will present in the 

shape of fourteen letters from the Secretary ; and a rarer speci- 
men of official correspondence cannot be easily found. 

The correspondence commences January, 1834. I will quote 
only the present Secretary's epistles; and beg you to remark 
how well he enforces the performance of 'paramount duties. 
His first letter follows : 

Treasury Department, February 6, 1835, 
Sir : — I regi-et that there should be occasion for again calling your attention to 
the omission to render your monthly duplicate returns to this oflBce for the months 
of November and Djscember (those being in arrear), and to remind you that punc- 
tuality in this respect is indispensable. 

This refers to the previous defaults, and shows that the Secre- 
tary was cognizant of them. The next month he writes again : 

March IT, 1835. 
Sir: — Having received no monthly duplicate return of the transactions of your 
oflBce since that for the month of October last, it becomes my unpleasant duty to 
call your immediate attention to the omission. Allow me to express a hope that 
thei-e may be no further occasion to remind you of the importance of punctuality 
sx the transmission of these returns. 

Here, it seems, H was in arrear for four returns ; in other 

words, had violated iovs paramount duties. 

But the Secretary is a man of long-suffering; so he writes 
again, and with some severity. He is determined to be trifled 
with no longer. Hear him : 



1 



SPEECH ON DEFALCATIONS. 23 

Trbasubt Depabtment, June 25, 1885. 
8qi : — Having, in a communication addressed to you on the 17th of March last, 
and on several prior occasions, urged upon you the indispensable necessity of a 
strict attention of making your monthly returns, and finding that no returns have 
been received from you since that for the month of November last, it becomes my 
unpleasant duty to say to you, that if those in arrear are not transmitted by return 
of mail, I shall be constrained to report your neglect for the action of the Exec- 
utive. 

I think, if Mr. H don't make his returns now, he's in a 

desperate case ; the Secretary is in earnest. Here is another 
letter. Let us see: 

Treasury Department, August 28, 1835. 
Sir :— Agreeably to the Intimation given you in my letter of the 20th June, it 
bas become my disagreeable duty to report your continued neglect to the President, 
who has instructed me to say to you, that if the monthly returns required from you 
by the regulations of the Treasury, which are in arrears, are not received at the 
Department on or before the 10th of October next, you will then be dismissed from 
office. 

There, sir, I told you so ; if Mr. H don't make his returns 

by the 10th of October, he will be dismissed; the President him- 
self has said it, and General Jackson is a man of his word. 

In the mean time, however, the Secretary gives him another 
hint : 

September 22, 1835. 

Sm: — Allow me to Inquire why it is that your deposits are not made in the 
branch of the Planters' Bank at Columbus, instead of the parent bank at Natchez f 
Does the branch refuse to receive them, and credit the amount at the mother 
bank? 

P. S. Your return for the month of February last has been received to-day, and 
Bbows a large amount on hand not deposited ; and you are hereby required, if not 
already done, to deposit any balance still on hand in the above branch, to the 
credit of the Treasury, and forward receipts therefor, in order to save time and 
expense in travelling to Natchez. 

Before the fatal 10th of October, the kind-hearted man writes 
still again, that he may give the victim one more warning before 
the day of grace is past : 

Treasury Department, September 28, M9R. 
Sir : — I regret to say that the reasons assigned in your letter of the 14th instant 
for withholding your monthly returns cannot hereafter be deemed satisfactory. I 



24 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

can perceive no suflBcient cause for their being delayed longer than the first weei 
in each succeeding month, as there can be no difficulty in ascertaining at once the 
amount of money received within the month, or in stating the amount of your dis^ 
bursements and deposits during the month. This is all that is required in them. 
The object of these returns is to afford the Department the earliest information in 
regard to the money operations of the land office, and the punctual transmission 
of all the moneys received to the bank of deposit. They are, therefore, of para- 
mount importance, and cannot be permitted to await the completion of detailed 
book entries, or the perfection of other business, be its character what it may. 

And now, sir, I am sorry to say this contumacious receiver 
paid no attention to these kind warnings and friendly solicita- 
tions. He did not make his returns ; the 10th of October is past, 

and Mr. H is doubtless removed ; for General Jackson and 

the Secretary have both said it. But, softly ; here is a letter 
dated the 12th of October ; no doubt it is the letter of dismissal. 
Let's read it : 

Treasury Department, October 12, 1S35. 

Sik: — Trusting to the assurances given in your letter of the 14th ultimo, and to 

those of your friends* made in your behalf, the President has consented, upon the 

facts now before him, to continue you in office until the 12th of November proximo : 

then, unless your monthly returns are all rendered, and satisfactory evidence that 



* Many of the early and constant friends of the Administration in this State have 
heard, with much regret and sorrow, that the present receiver of public moneys at 
this place is to " consider himself dismissed unless his returns are made before the 
fii-st of October." I have long had the honor of an intimate acquaintance with 

Gen. H , and I can freely assure your Excellency that a more honorable man 

does not live. 

Poindexter employed a vile, unprincipled agent to take testimony at this office, 

under a resolution of the Senate ; and he endeavored to implicate Gen. H in 

some transactions of very minor importance. If I had been examined, I could 

have explained the whole matter to the entire exoneration of Gen. H . The 

fact is, it was a miserable attempt of Poindexter to strengthen his party here. 

Nothing would rejoice him more than the expulsion of Gen. H , whom he knows 

to be one of the main pillars of the democratic cause, and one of the earliest and 
most distinguished friends of the Administration in Mississippi. His family 
and connections are extremely influential, and all of them are co-operating with ua 
in the arduous struggle which we are now making. They are true democrats, and 
the bank, nullifying, and White parties would shout " victory" at any blow aimed 
at them. We are now in the midst of an electioneering campaign. Gov. Runnels, 
R. Walker, Maj. Edwards, «nd myself, constitute the democratic Van Buren ticket. 
It will be a close contest. Nine-tenths of our newspapers are for White ; and every 
bank in the State, including the United States branch, has taken commission in his 



SPEECH ON DEFALCATIONS. 2$ 

the whole of the public moneys with which you are chargeable are deposited [ia 
received], you must be removed from office, however painful both to him and this 
DepartL.. at. 

Well, this is strange ! a reprieve ? and based upon Mr. H 's 

letter of the 14th ultimo ? Why, the Secretary says in his last 
that the reasons given in this letter of the 14tli ultimo, for with- 
holding the returns, are unsatisfactory ; that he can perceive no 
sufficient cause for their being delayed. 

I wish he would explain why he and the President violated 
their pledge in this case. I confess I don't understand it. I 

thought if H did not make his returns, he would certainly 

be removed. But if he does not make all his returns and depo- 
sits by the 12th of November, he will positively have to go, 
"however painful" to both the President and the Department. 
Lest he should forget all about the matter, the Secretary in a few- 
days writes again : 

Treasury Department, October 26, 1835. 

Sir :— I have to observe, in reply to your letter of the 9th instant, that the 
allowance authorized by the regulations of the Department, as a compensation for 
travelling expenses, and risk in the transmission of the public moneys to the bank 
of deposit, can only be made when such expenses and risk have actually been incur- 
red, and not in any case where both are avoided by means of the facilities afforded 
by the mail or deposit banks ; moreover, inasmuch as the branch bank of Columbus 
receives and credits the moneys received by you in the first instance,! can perceive 
no reason why each deposit in past months should not have embraced the whole 
amount in your possession at the time of sach deposit, as the instructions require. 

Sir, the 12th of November arrived and passed ; and yet H 

had failed to deposit the pubhc moneys with which he was 
chargeable, according to the requisition of the Secretary's letter. 
Of course he was dismissed without further hesitation, you 
exclaim. Not so fast; don't be rash in your conclusions. I 
have become suspicious about the matter since the reprieve. I 
don't believe, now, he was removed at all. 



service. Some three or four thousand of our votes are recent emigrants from other 
States, and reside in the new counties, knowing nothing of our arrangements ; and 
as we have no mails circulating among them, the result as to them is doubtful.— 

Extract from a letter of J. F. H. C , to Gen. Andrew Jackson, President of 

the U. 8., dated Cohmibus {MLhs.), Sejttcmber 15, 1835. 

VOL. IL 2 



26 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

And, sure enough, he was not. Here is the very next letter 
from the Department, talking to him as mildly as if he had never 
offended : 

Treasuet DEPAETjrENT, November 2S, 1835. 
Sib : — ^Your letter of the 11th instant, and return for the month of October, ia 
received. As your deposits of public moneys are made at Columbus, no reason 
whatever can be seen why the whole money in your hands at the end of the month 
is not deposited. It is expected that it will be hereafter. 

Yery true ; no reason can be seen why he should not have 
deposited the money, and no reason can be seen why he was not 
removed for failing so long and so repeatedly to do it. But to 
the correspondence : 

Treasdrt Department, March 28, 1836. 
Sir: — Your letter of the 13th instant, inclosing your retui'n for the month of 
November, is received. Again it becomes my unpleasant duty to complain of your 
neglect in this respect, and to inform you that the omission to transmit the required 
monthly statements, for a whole quarter after they are due, cannot be permitted in 
any public officer ; and especially after having been heretofore so often reminded 
of the consequences of such neglect. On the return of the mail, therefore, if the 
usual statements for the other months in arrear are not received, I shall be under 
the disagreeable necessity of again submitting the subject to the President, for hia 
immediate action. 

"Why, Mr. Secretary, you are crawling out at the same place 
you crept in. This is the tune you played at the commence- 
ment. It is rather too late in the day to think of frightening 
H now, by threatening to turn him' out, when he and every- 
body else know you never intend to do it. 

Mr. Chairman, let me crave your patience. "We are nearly 
through this case, and then we will rest for a moment. The 
following letter begins to exhibit the catastrophe : 

Treasury Department, June 6, 1836. 
Sir : — Your letter of the28d ultimo, accompanied by your returns for the month 
of April, is received. Seeing the balance of public moneys in your hands amounted 
to $128,884 70 at the end of that month, I have to request that you will explain 
why it was that the whole of the public moneys in your hands on the last of the 
previous month was not deposited, instead of a part, in conformity to explicit and 
frequent instructions on that point. It is painfiU to be obliged to ask you so often 
for explanations. 



k 



I 



SPEECH ON DEFALCATIONS. 21 

Yes, I should suppose it must have been painful. 

The Secretary is truly a man of much patience. He must be 
a lineal descendant of Job. He gives to his subordinates " line 
upon Kne," "precept upon precept," "hereaHttle" and there 
a great deal. He strives hard to teach them honesty. 

At length Mr. H does what neither the President nor the 

Secretary dared to do — he dismisses himself from office; in other 
words, he resigns. 

Trkasurt Department, September 21, 1836. 
SrR:_Your letter of the 27th ultimo, addressed to the President, has been 
referred to this office. Your duties as receiver will, of course, have ceased, or been 
suspended, after the 31st ultimo, the time icheii you propose your resignation 
should take efect. Immediate steps, it is hoped, will be taken to adjust your 
accounts and pay over the balance. Soon as the President returns, another com- 
munication will be made to you. 

He resigns, a defaulter for $100,000. He had quite a mod- 
erate appetite, compared with Svvartwout and some others. 

There is but one more morsel of this correspondence on record, 
and it is of a piece with the balance. It consists of regret on 
the part of the Secretary that legal steps had been taken "to 
attempt to secure" what was due the Government. 

Treasury Department, Naveinber 19, 1S36. 
Sir:— I have received your letter of the 1st instant, by the mail of this morning, 
and regret to inform you that, as long ago as August last, steps were taken by the 
Solicitor of the Treasury to attempt to secm-e the balance due from you. 

ISTow, will any one dare to deny that the President and Secre- 
tary were Hterally guilty of this defalcation ? Did it not result 
from their willful neglect of duty — from absolute and unquahfied 
connivance ? For two years and a half this receiver was never for 
a single instant out of default ; he was during that whole period 
in continued violation of the acknowledged ^''paramount duties 
of his office.'''' The Secretary was aware of the whole of it. The 
case at length becomes so ripe, that it falls of itself— a good 
round golden apple of the value of $100,000 and upwards. And 
yet the Secretary swears that no such fruit grows in his garden. 

But let UP again take a birdseye view of this correspondence. 



28 'MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

Let us group it ; without giving the exact language, we will take 
the meaning — the idea. 

Letter 1st. Mr. H., I am sorry to tell you again, you haven't 
made your returns. 

2d. Mr. H., you haven't made your returns. 

8d. Mr. H., if you don't make your returns, I'll tell the 
President. 

4th. Mr. H., you had better settle up; if you don't, out 
you go. 

5th. Mr. H., please to tell me why you haven't settled ; do, 
that's a good man. 

6th. Mr. H., now don't behave so. 

7th. Mr. H., how would you feel if you were dismissed 
from office ? Better pay up, or you'll know. 

8th. Mr. H., it's lucky for you you've got strong friends; 
that's the reason we don't turn you out. But you'd better mind 
your eye. 

9th. Mr. H., ain't you ashamed ? 

10th. Mr. H., perhaps you don't know it, but you are very 
much behindhand. Do you intend to pay up or not ? I wish 
you would. 'Tis very strange you will hurt my feelings so, and 
the President's too. 

11th. Mr. H., how comes it that you are a defaulter for 
$128,884 70 ? I don't wish to hurt your feelings, but I should 
like to know. I have a curiosity on the subject ; can't you tell 
me? 

12th. Mr. H., you've resigned^ have you ? Well, that beats 
anything. What a cunning dog you are ! Feathered your nest 
well, ha? I'll tell the President all about it when he comes 
home. How he will laugh ! 

13th. Dear Mr. H., I regret to tell you that the rascally 
Solicitor of the Treasury is a-going to try and recover back that 
money you've got, which belongs to the government. Never 
mind ; we'll fix it some way. 

Such is an epitome of the correspondence of the Secretary of 
the Treasury, and constitutional adviser of the President. What 
a rich specimen of an American statesman ! 



SPEECH ON DEFALCATIONS.^ 20 

But to our task. The nest defaulter whom I shall mention 
y^SLS B , the successor of H , a "follower in the foot- 
steps." In little better than six months after he had been in 
office, we find the following account of his fidelity. It is ex- 
tracted from the report of one Garesche, who was sent out 
by the Secretary to examine the condition of the land offices. 
It is dated 14th June, 1837. In relation to B , he says : 

The account of the receiver, which I have made out, and transmit herewith, pre- 
Bents against him a balance of $55,905 54. His own account makes it $53,272 73 ; 
it is also annexed. His assets, of which I also send you the list, amount to 
$61,549 98, rating the land at $1 25 only, but might probably realize double the 
amount. The man seems really peiiitent ; and I am inclined to think, in common 
with his friends, that he is honest, and has been led away from his duty l/y the 
example of his predecessor, and a c-ertain looseness in the code of morality, 
•which here does not move in so limited a circle as it does with us at home. 
Another receiver would probably follow in the footsteps of the two. You will not, 
therefore, be surprised if I recommend his "bei-ng retained, in preference to another 
appointment ; for he has his hands full now, and will not feel disposed to spec- 
ulate any more. He will have his bond signed by the sam,e sureties, and forwarded 
in a few days to Washington ; this speaks favorably. He has, moreover, pledged 
his word that, if retained, he will strictly obey the law, and receive nothing hut 
specie in payment for lands. He tells me that he is about selling a great portion 
of his lands ; that, and some other negotiation, will enable him to discharge a large 
portion of his debt to the United States before the expiration of the present quar- 
ter. Lenity towards him, therefore, might stimulate him to exertions, which severity 
might perhaps paralyze. I have, in the mean time, enjoined the closing of the 
land office until the lond is completed and returned. Ko land has been 8old 
since the 29th ultimo 

Sir, who, but a profligate pander, could have written the 
above ? Who, but a political bawd, could have received it with- 
out indignation and contempt ? 

" You loill not he surprised if I recommend his being retained ;* 
"/or Tie has his hands full now.'''' 

The licentious familiarity of this, as well as other of the reports 
and letters to the Secretary, cannot fail of arousing, in the 
breast of every pure-minded man, sentiments of scorn and 
disgust. 

But, says this polypus feeler of the Secretary of the Treasury, 
" the man seems really penitent ; and I am inclined to think, in 
common with his friends, that he is honest., and has been led 



30 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

away from his duty by the example of his predecessor, and a 
certain looseness in the code of morality ^ ichich here does not move 
in so limited a circle as it does with us at homey Now, sir, a 
more infamous slander was never promulgated against an intel- 
ligent and moral community ; for a more upright, intelligent, and 
moral community cannot be found in the Republic than that 
which is the subject of this vile libel. Why, sir, I do not believe 
there is a citizen of that community who would not spurn, with 
honest and indignant scorn, the profligate sentiments of this self- 
constituted " censor morum^ 

l!To, sir ; it was that looseness of political morality which 
marks the party in power, which more especially illustrates the 
oflScial conduct of the Secretary of the Treasury, that induced 
B to embezzle the public property. 

And he did it with a vengeance. His accounts exhibit his 
defalcation as of some $50,000 or $60,000 in money. But it was 
a more splendid robbery than this : it was of some 28,000 acres 
of the pubhc domain, which, by virtue of his office, he transfer- 
red to himself without even paying for it a single dollar. 

Sir, this was a bold operation ; most of the appropriators of 
other people's property prefer personal chattels — something 
which can be concealed, and, if necessary, taken across the 
waters. But " there be land rats as well as water rats ;" and 

B , it seems, was a land rat. What a huge slice he cut from 

the public loaf !— 28,000 acres of land ! ' Why, it is more than a 
German principality. The Norman robber, when he divided out 
the broad lands of merry England, gave not to his haughty 
barons such wide extent of wood and field. Who would not be 
the feudatory of this Administration, when the tenure is so easy, 
and the reward would constitute the materials for a dukedom ? 

Sir, the Secretary deserves impeachment for this case alone. 
Why has he not proceeded to set aside the illegal and false titles 
to these lands ? The receiver never had a shadow of right to 
them. Yet his pretended title has been recognized, and portions 
of the land are now being sold by the officers of the government 
as the property of the delinquent. 

After this extensive land-piracy, what does the Secretary do 



SPEECH ON DEFALCATIONS. 31 

Does he, with virtuous indignation, turn him out of office ? No, 
sir. He permits him to resign at his leisure. Two months after 
Garesch^'s report, he writes him as follows : 

Treasury Department, August 8, 183T. 
Sir :— I am happy to hear of the frank and honorable course proposed in your 
'etter of the 24th ultimo. It would be convenient to have the bond and resignation 
arrive here by the early part of September. 

Yes, sir ; according to the morahty of the Secretary, resign- 
ing, after robbing the government of 20,000 or 30,000 acres of 
land, is very '■'•franh and TionordbUy 

Having cited one more case — that of Wm. L , a 

receiver in Illinois — Mr. P. proceeds : — 

But the Secretary says he was not bound to notice these defal- 
cations ; that it was impossible for him to scent them out. 
After reading the foregoing letters and extracts — " elegant 
extracts" they may be called — I am inclined to think the Secre- 
tary has taken his cue in this matter from the following fable, 
which, if my friend from Virginia (Mr. Wise) will do me the 
favor to read, he will afford a moment's relief both to the House 
and myself. [Here Mr. Wise read, with much humor, from a 
paper handed him by Mr. P.] 

" And how did it happen, Pat, that Misther VcmB always kept in with the 

ould gineral, as he did?" 
" Why, I'm thinking, Murphy, it was because he had such a "bad could, jist ."* 
" And what had his having a coidd to do with the matter at all, at all ?" 
" Why, did you never hear, Murphy, my boy, of the fox that had a could ? Then 
I'll tell ye. Once there was a lion that wanted to know how polite aU the bastes 
were. So he made a great smell in his den with brimstone, or something else— I 
don't mind what jist— but it smelt enough to knock you down intirely ; and then ha 
called in the bear, and says he, ' Good morning, Mr. Bear, and what d'ye think of 
the smell here this morning?' and says the bear, says he, 'Why, it smells had.* 
'What's that you say?' says the lion; 'take that,' says he (ating him up alto- 
gether !) ' take that, and see if it will tache ye politeness, ye unmannerly son of a 
cub !' Now, when the bear was ate up, the lion called in the monkey, and asked 
him the same question precisely. Now, the monkey seeing the bear that the lion 
had swallowed lying dead in the corner, says he, ' May it please your majesty ' (says 
he), ' it's jist the most delightful smell I ever smelt in my life, at all, at all.' ' So it 



32 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

Is,' said the lion (patting him on the head, aisy like, so as to bate the breath clana 
out of his body), ' so it is ' (said he), ' and now you'll not tell another lie soon, I'm 
thinking.' 

"Now, when the lion had kil't the bear and the monkey, he called in the fox to 
him, and, says he (looking very savage, and ready to ate him up, if he should 
make the laste fox paw at all), ' Good morning, J^oa;,' says he, ' how does my parlor 
smell to-day?' And says the fox (wiping his nose with the brush of his tail, and 
pulling down his eye-lid with his paw, as much as to say, ' D'ye see any green 
there, my honey ?') ' Faith,' says he, ' may it please your majesty, I've a very bad 
cotdd this morning, and it's me that can't smell at all, at all !' So the lion laughed, 
and tould the fox he was a very clever baste, and that he might tread in his foot' 
steps if he could stymddle wide enough, and that all the other bastes should mind 
him, or he would ate them up as he had done the bear." 

Mr. P. resumed. The Secretary, though in other respects he 
resembles a much larger and less cunning animal, yet, in this mat- 
ter, has certainly taken a lesson from the fox. " He's had a very 
lad could,^^ and ^'■couIdnH smell at all, at alV No, sir; the 
stench of corruption, which has been so long steaming up from 
his Department, has not, it seems, yet offended his olfactories. 
Besides all this, his friends excuse him by saying that the gov- 
ernment "will, probably, not ultimately lose anything by these 
defalcations; that the money will be recovered back, either from 
the defaulters or their sureties. 

Sir, if a thief is detected, and compelled to disgorge the sub- 
ject of his larceny, does it relieve the rogue and his accomplice 
from guilt ? Does it extinguish the crime ? Upon the answer to 
this question depends the validity of the Secretary's excuse. It 
is also urged in his favor, that defalcations have occurred under 
other administrations ; that the public money has been stolen 
before. This plea I feel compelled to allow to its whole extent. 
*' Brave men lived before Agamemnon." In justice to the Sec- 
cretary, I cannot deny that Ms i^ets are not the first thieves on 
record ; and I give him joy of the able defence which his friends 
have extracted from this remarkable circumstance. 

And now, Mr. Chairman, what do you think of this Secretary 
of the Treasury ? of his epistolary talent ? of his capacity and 
fitness for the station he occupies? He resembles much, both in 
manner and morality, that worthy old lady who lived at " The 
Kug," in Bulwer's " Paul Clifford," and rejoiced in the name of 



SPEECH ON DEFALCATIONS. 33 

" Mrs. Margery Lobkins," more familiarly called " Peggy Lob." 
His correspondence with his subalterns cannot fail of calling to 
your recollection the exquisite admonitions of honest " Peggy" 
to "Leetle Paul." Thus moralized, not the Secretary, but the 
kind-hearted dame : 

Mind thy kittychlsm, child, and reverence old age. Never steal !— ''specially 
tchen any one he in the way. Be modest, Paul, and stick to your sitivation in life. 
Read your Bible and talk like a pious Urn. People goes by your words more than 
your ACTIONS. If you wants what is not your own, try and do without it; and, if 
you cannot do without it, take it away by insinvvation, not bluster. They aa 
swindles does more and risks less than they as robs. 

Yes, sir ; " people goes more by your words than by your 
actions.''^ Well has the President studied this maxim, and cun- 
ningly did he practise upon it when he recommended that defal- 
cation should be made a penitentiary offence. Peggy Lob placed 
in leetle Paul's hand the sum of five halfpence and one farthing. 
" There, boy," quoth she, and she stroked his head fondly when 
she spoke (just as the Secretary caresses his subordinates), "you 
does right not to play for nothing, it's a loss of time ! But play 
'with those as be less than yourself, and then you can go for to 
leat ^em if they says you go for to cheat." Ay, and it has not 
been long since this was the doclH-ine of those in power ; and 
*' to go for to leat those who say you go for to cheat''' became the 
watchword of the party. I recollect well, and my honorable 
friend who sits near me (Mr. Wise) recollects still better than I 
do, those days of terror, when he had to legislate, as he told us 
the other day, with " harness on ;" when the best argument was 
the pistol, and the only law was club-law. It was the time when 
*' Hurrah for Jackson" constituted the " Open Sesame" of power, 
which gained at once admittance into the robber's cave, and par- 
ticipation in the plunder. Then General Jackson had but to 
"Whistle, and 

"Instant from copse and heath arose 
Bonnets, and spears, and bended bows." 

His followers, like those of Eoderick Dhu, started up in every 
direction, ready and eager to perform his bidding. He had but 
to point his finger, and his fierce bloodhounds buried their 

VOL. II. 2* 



34 MEMOIR OF S. S. PREXTISS. 

muzzles in tlie unfortunate victim of his wrath. Then was the 
saturnaha of the office-holders ; and, like the locusts of Egypt, 
they plagued the land. Few dared to whisper of corruptions or 
defalcations ; and a bold man was he who proposed to investigate 
them, for it was sure to bring down upon his head the rage 
which never relented, and the anger which nothing but furious 
persecution could assuage. 

There was one man, however, who blenched not before Gen- 
eral Jackson's frown, and who dared to propose an investigation 
into frauds and corruptions which had become so palpable and 
gross as to be an offence in the nostrils of the community. He 
occupied, at that time, a seat in the other end of this building, as 
Senator from my own State ; a State upon whose laws and in- 
stitutions his talents and genius are indelibly impressed. The 
political history of Mississippi is illustrated by his name, from its 
commencement. He served her in all her departments ; and as 
legislator, judge, and Governor, advanced her prosperity, and 
added to her character. What he was as Senator you all know. 
He stood proudly among the proud, and lofty among the loftiest, 
at a time when the Senate Chamber contained the garnered 
talent of the country ; when its intellectual giants shook the 
whole nation with their mighty strife. * * The floor of 
that body was his proper arena. To a correctness of judg- 
ment, which would have given him reputation even with- 
out the capacity of expression, he joined a power of debato 
which, for parliamentary strength and effect, was unsurpassed. 
To all this was added a stern, unyielding attachment to his politi- 
cal principles, and an indomitable boldness in expressing and 
sustaining them. 

Do you not recollect, sir, when General Jackson, like Charles 
I., strode to the legislative chamber, and thrust among the Sena- 
tors a despotic edict, more insulting than if he had cast at their 
feet a naked sword ? It was that fierce message which com- 
menced with breaking down the independence and character of 
the Senate, and finally resulted in that worse than felon act, the 
desecration of its records. But the mandate passed not unop- 
posed or unrebuked. When it burst, like a wild beast from his 



SPEECH ON DEFALCATIONS. 35 

lair, upon the astonished body -whose degradation it contempla- 
ted, and in the end accomplished, most of the distinguished Sen- 
ators were absent ; but he of whom I speak was at his post. 
Single-handed, and alone, like Codes at the head of the bridge, 
he held at bay the Executive squadrons, and for a whole day 
drove back the Mamelukes of power ; till at the sound of his 
voice, as at the sound of a trumpet, his gallant compeers, the 
champions of freedom, the knights — not of the black lines, but 
of the Constitution — came flocking to the rescue. Sir, it was a 
noble scene, and worthy of the best times of the Boman republic. 
A Senator of the United States, in bold and manly pride, tramp- 
ling under foot Executive insult, and protecting at the same time 
the honor of his country and the dignity of his high station. 
There was a moral chivalry about it, far above the heroism 
of the field. Even now, the contemplation of it makes the 
blood thrill through the veins, and flush the forehead to tht/ 
very temples. I need not tell you that man's name was .George 
Poindexter ; a name that will long and honorably live among 
the lovers of independence and the haters of tyranny. But he 
dared to propose an investigation into the frauds and corruptions 
of the Government, and from that moment his doom was sealed. 
The deep, turbid, and resistless current of Jacksonism swept 
him from the State in whose service the best of his life had been 
expended ; and, ostracized from her councils, he became an exile 
in other lands. 

Sir, the office-holders in this country form an oligarchy too 

powerful to be resisted. Why was not S removed ? Why 

was not H ? Why r^ot L and B ? I will tell you. 

The Administration did not dare to remove them, even had it 
wished to do so ; like pachas, they had become too powerful for 
the Sultan, and would not have hesitated in twisting the bow- 
string round the neck of the messenger who presented it. 

Since the avowal of that unprincipled and barbarian motto, 
that " to the mcto7's belong tliespolls^^'' office, which was intended 
for the use and benefit of the people, has become but the plun- 
der of party. Patronage is waved like a huge magnet over the 
land, and demagogues, like iron filings, attracted by a law of 



86 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

their nature, gather and cluster around its poles. Never yet 
lived the demagogue who would not take otfice. The whole 
frame of our government, the whole institutions of the country, 
are thus prostituted to the uses of party. I express my candid 
opinion, when I aver that I do not believe a single office of 
importance within the control of the Executive has, for the last 
five years, been filled with any other view, or upon any other 
consideration, than that of party efiect ; and if good appoint- 
ments have in any instances been made, and benefit accrued to 
the country, it has been an accidental, and not a voluntary result. 
Office is conferred as the reward of partisan service ; and what 
is the consequence ? Why, the office-holders are not content 
"with the pitiful salaries which afford only small compensation 
for present labors, but do not, in their estimation, constitute any 
adequate reward for their previous political services. This 
reward, they persuade themselves, it is perfectly right to retain 
from whatever passes through their hands. Being taught that 
all moneys in their possession belong not to the people, but to 
the party, it requires but small exertion of casuistry to bring 
them to the conclusion that they have a right to retain what 
they may conceive to be the value of their political services ; 
'ust as a lawyer holds back his commissions. The Administra- 
tion countenances all this ; winks at it as long as possible ; 
and when public exposure is inevitable, generally gives the 
bloated plunderer full warning and time to escape with his 
spoils. 

Do yon not see the eagerness with which even Governors, 
Senators and Eepresentatives in Congress, grasp at the most 
trivial appointments — the most insignificant emoluments ? Well 
do these sons of the horse-leech know that there is more blood 
in the body than what mantles in the cheek, and more profit in 
an office than is exhibited by the salary. 

Sir, I have given you but two or three cases of defalcations ; 
would time permit, I could give you a hundred. Like the fair 
Sultana of the oriental legends, I could go on for a thousand and 
one nights ; and even as in those Eastern stories, so in the 
chronicles of the office-holders, the tale would ever be of heaps 



SPEECH ON DEFALCATIONS. St 

of gold, massive ingots, uncounted riches. Why, sir, Aladdin's 
lamp was nothing to it. They seem to possess the identical cap 
of Fortunatus ; some wish for $50,000, some for $100,000, some 
for a million ; and behold, it lies in glittering heaps before them. 
Not even 

" The gorgeous East, with richest hand, 
Showers on her kings barbaric pearl and gold" 

in such lavish abundance as does this Administration upon its 
followers. Pizarro held not forth more dazzling lures to his 
robber band, when he led them to the conquest of the Children 
of the Sun. * * * These defalcations teach another lesson, 
and one well worth the cost, if we will but profit by its admoni- 
tions. They teach that the Sub-Treasury system is but the hot- 
bed of temptation and crime. They teach that the public treas- 
ure cannot be safely confided to individual custody. Sir, this 
Government may determine to watch, like Turks, with jealous 
care, its golden harem ; but it will seek in vain for the financial 
eunuchs who have the power to guard without the wish to 
enjoy. 

Mr. Chairman, the amount of money we have lost, great as it 
is, presents a question of but little comparative importance. If 
this whole Administration would take passage in the Great 
"Western, and, with the Treasury in their pockets, follow after 
Swartwout and Price, I doubt not the country would cry 
" quits," and think it a happy riddance. But it is a deep and 
vital question, how such things are to be prevented in future ; 
how this running sore is to be healed ; how this system of neg- 
ligence and corruption is to be stopped, and the action of the 
Government brought back to its original purity. 

Give us the right sort of committee — one that will go through 
the Departments as Yan Tromp swept through the British chan- 
nel, with a broom at the mast-head ; and sometliing, perhaps, 
may be done. But, for my own part, I look for no permanent 
good except in a change of rulers. 

This Administration was conceived in sin and brought forth ia 
iniquity ; it has not belied its parentage. It is essentially and 



38 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

radically corrupt. In the language of an English historian 
describing the reign, of the eighth Henry, " it has attained as 
near to 'perfect depramty as the infirmities of human nature 
would permit." Just before an election it will talk of reform, 
and deprecate, with holy horror, the consequences of its own 
misdeeds ; but, no sooner is the object accomplished, than it 
returns to its policy like a dog to his vomit. I have no hope of 
reform in the party in power : my only hofje is, that the people, 
convinced of their hypocrisy and wickedness, will hurl hem 
from the high places they have so long disgraced. That a 
consummation so devoutly to be wished for may be obtained, 
let us unite in exhibiting to the country their true principles ; 
let us fasten upon them the responsibility of their actions. In 
this patriotic work I trust I shall find with me my honorable 
friend from South Carolina, who sits near me (Mr. PicKEisrs). 
Often has he led the fierce assault against these very corruptions. 
"Has his hand waxed weak or his heart waxed cold," that his 
war-cry has not yet tingled in our ears ? Surely the " horn of 
Eoland" will sound again ; surely in this, his favorite battle, he 
will strike one more blow for Christendom before he renounces 
the cross and assumes the turban. Sir, I see by his flashing eye 
his soul is with us ; the spirit of the past is rising before him ; 
he recollects that many moons have not yet waxed and waned, 
since this very party, who now claim him as an ally, crouched 
and howled like an exorcised demon beneath the magic of his 
burning words. Let him come out from among them — he and 
his friends — for they are not of them : eagles mate not with kites 
and carrion crows. Sir, I should rejoice to see the gallant gen- 
tleman resume his original position. I should be proud to win 
my spurs under so well-approved and accomplished a leader. 
Let me call to his mind a fable, with which he is doubtless 
familiar : A gaunt and ravenous wolf, hastily gorging the spoils 
of some plundering expedition, was choked by a bone, and lay at 
the point of death. A stork happened to be passing that way, 
and, moved by an ill-juged pity, extended her long neck down 
the wolf's throat, and extracted the bone. Upon modestly sug- 
gesting the propriety of some reward for so generous an act, the 



SPEECH ON DEFALCATIONS. 39 

Btork was told, with a \Yolfisli scowl, that she ought to consider 
herself fortunate that her head was not bitten off during the 
operation. 

Now, I take it that it requires no name written beneath this 
picture, to enable the most obtuse to recognize, in the ravenous 
wolf, the present party in power. The picture will also call to 
mind how this party, some years ago, while gorging, with wolfish 
ippetite, upon the " spoils," got a bone in its throat, and lay at 
:he point of dissolution. I leave it to the sagacity of the gen- 
tleman from South Carolina to finish the resemblance ; to say 
who acted towards the Administration the part of the benevolent 
Btork ; and to reflect upon the boon she is likely to receive for 
her kindness. 

Sir, the immense peculations of Swartwout, Price, and others, 
or rather the exposure of them, has alarmed the Administration. 
They propose to make up the losses by retrenchment. And 
what do you suppose are to be the subjects of this new and sud- 
den economy ? What branches of the public service are to be 
lopped off on account of the licentious rapacity of the office- 
holders? I feel too indignant to tell you. Look into the report 
of the Secretary of the Treasury, and you will find out. Well, 
sir, what are they ? Pensions, harbors, and light-houses. Yes, 
sir, these are recommended as proper subjects for retrenchment. 
First of all, the scarred veterans of the Kevolution are to be 
deprived of a portion of the scanty pittance doled out to them 
by the cold charity of the country. How many of them will 
you have to send forth as beggars upon the very soil which they 
wrenched from the hand of tyranny, to make up the amount of 
Bven one of these splendid robberies ? How many harbors will 
it take— those improvements dedicated no less to humanity than 
■ to interest ; those nests of commerce, to which the canvas- 
winged birds of the ocean flock for safety ? How many light- 
houses will it take? How many of those " bright eyes of the 
ocean," as my friend from Virginia beautifully calls them, are to 
be put out? How many of those faithful sentinels who stand 
along our rocky coast, and, peering far out in the darkness, give 
timely warning to the hardy mariner where the lee-shore 



40 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

threatens — how many of these, I ask, are to be discharged from 
their humane service? Why, the proposition is almost impious. 
I should as soon wish to put out the stars of heaven. 

Sir, my blood boils at the cold-blooded atrocity with which 
this Administration proposes thus to sacrifice the very family 
jewels of the country, to pay for the consequences of its own 
profligacy. If they wish to retrench, let them cut down salaries, 
instead of hglit-houses ; let them abandon offices, instead of 
harbors ; let them turn out upon the world some of their 
wide-mouthed partisans, instead of the soldiers of the Eevo- 
lution. 

Mr. Chairman, I have done ; I had intended to notice other 
portions of the message, but shall defer it ; for I have already 
too far taxed the patience of the committee. I shall voce in the 
House for an investigation, though I do not expect much from 
it. My hope is in an investigation by a higher authority than 
this House — by the people. The evil of the times lies not in par- 
ticular cases, but in the principles of the party. Legislation 
cannot reach it. It is a radical evil, and the people alone can 
cure it. That they will do so, and in the only way it can be 
done, ly a change of rulers^ I have a high and holy confidence. 
This Administration has eaten like a cancer so far into the 
institutions of the country, that, unless the remedy be soon 
applied, it will be too late. I do most conscientiously believe, 
that if the present dynasty is continued in power, constitutional 
liberty cannot survive. Already our institutions are half cor- 
rupted. Already anarchy and despotism are leagued together 
against the constitution and the laws. Let him who doubts it 
look at the proceedings in a neighboring State, and the conduct 
of the Federal Executive in relation thereto. 

Let the present Executive be re-elected ; let him continue to 
be guided by the counsels of Mephistophiles and Asmodeus, the 
two familiars who are ever at his elbow — those lords, the one 
of letters and the one of lies — and it will not be long that this 
mighty hall will echo to the voice of an American representative. 
This Capitol will have no other uses than to attract the curiosity 
of the passing traveller, who, in melancholy idleness, will stoj 



SPEECH ON THE NAVY. 4l 

to inscribe upon one of these massive pillars, " Here was a 
Republic ! " 

This was his only set speech during the session. But he 
made several off-hand. The following graphic sketch of 
one of them has been kindly furnished by the Rev. John L. 
Blake, D. D., of Orange, N. J. 

On the 21st of February, 1839, in the Lower House of Con- 
gress, there was a tremendous excitement, and the sitting v/as 
continued till one or two o'clock the next morning, when an 
adjournment took place ; but the subject was to be resumed at the 
hour of meeting on the 22d. The opinion was prevalent that it 
would lead to bloodshed, perhaps in the midst of the debate, as 
threats of violence had been freely uttered during the previous 
evening. The leading persons in the debate were Dr. Duncan 
of Ohio, "Wise of Virginia, Peentiss of- Mississippi, Stanley of 
North Carolina, Menifee of Kentucky, a member from Georgia, 
and several others whose names I did not know or have forgot- 
ten. The House was crowded, of course, at an early hour on 
the 22d, but by effort, in taking an early start, I got a good seat 
in the front of the gallery, with your brother about five feet in 
advance of me and before me on the floor of the Chamber. The 
debate was opened at the usual hour, but with a scattering of oil 
on the surface, so that the threatening aspects of the day pre- 
vious did not manifest themselves, and at noon the subject was 
laid on the table. The only speakers I heard on it (I mean that 
morning), were Wise, Menifee, Peentiss, Stanley, and Duncan, 
and there was nothing very remarkable in either. The whole 
was a kind of pacification. However, as soon as that was laid 
on the table, a resolution was offered, or called up, respecting 
some unofficer-like conduct in the Navy. After a brief pause, 
Peextiss took the floor, and made one of the most beautiful 
speeches on the Navy — its character and utility — I ever heard. 
He could not have had five minutes for premeditation ; and then 
he was fresh from the excitement of another subject, which had 
foreboded personal violence — though it is proper to say, that he 



42 MEMOIR OF S. a. l^iENlIS:5. 

was not the one that invited violence, and bid de^ance to it. 
Aftvr his eulogy on the Navy, he threw himself on the accused 
in a kind of indignation paroxysm. He characterized him as 
having sacrificed the national escutcheon to his own love of lucre ; 
as impelled by a low-bred, degraded instinct, instead of a pur6, 
hallowed principle of patriotism. His diction was easy and chaste; 
his gesticulation was natural and powerful ; and in withering 
sarcasm, the English language could by no imaginable analysis or 
combination furnish what was superior. On briefly scanning the 
facts in the case, there was connected with each one a biting 
commentary and a succession of overwhelming epithets, falling 
in uninterrupted rapidity from his lips like an immense volume 
of water over a precipitous cataract. When witnessing, for 
the first time, the thunders of Niagara, and the mist rising in 
clouds from the deep abyss, we have stood, and we have seen 
others stand, in amazement at the sublimity of the scene. It 
seems to me it was much so on that occasion in the Hall of Con- 
gress. The members, as well as those in the gallery, for a 
moment appeared unable to speak, or move, or even to breathe, 
save in half-suppressed pulsations. The man in epaulets looked 
like a statue, and it is not for me to say, whether the flitting 
blushes on his cheek, sometimes paler than lilac and sometimes 
dark as oriental purple, blending and commingling in every pos- 
sible shade and hue, denoted conscious guilt or remorseles shame. 
It devolved not on me to be his accuser or his judge ; nor do I 
know how it ended, as on the following day I left Washington. 
I thought Mr. Peextiss the most naturally gifted orator I had 
ever heard. The impression he made upon my mind on that 
occasion is now as fresh as it was a few hours afterwards, and it 
■will never be effaced from my memory. 

Here follow a few more specimens of his letters from 
Washington ; 

TO niS SISTER ANNA. 

Washingtok City, January 81, 1839. 

My Deaeest Sistee: — 

I have been a very bad boy in neglecting you so 
long ; but if you'll forgive me this time, I won't do so any more. 



LETTERS. 43 

I was very near coming home, when I was at New York, and 
had to sacrifice my inclinations very much in not doing so. It 
would have been so delightful to spend even a single day 
with you. But my pubhc duty compelled me to return to Wash- 
ington. I have been quite busy the last two or three days in 
writing out the speech I delivered on the 27th and 28th of De- 
cember. I had neglected it so long that I should not have 
written it at all but for the strong solicitations of my poUtical 
friends, who are kind enough to believe it will do some good. It 
will be published next week in the Intelligencer^ and also in 
pamphlets. I shall send you some copies as soon as it is out. I 
am so lazy, and feel so indifferent about politics now, that I do 
not think I shall make another set speech during the session ; 
indeed, I am not sure that I shall stay the session out. I am so 
very anxious to get back to my business in Mississippi, that it is 
quite probable I shall leave by the middle of February. I am 
very glad to hear that Abby's health was so much improved by 
her visit to New York, and that she is in such good spirits ; and 
I need not say how alarmed and grieved I am at your continued 
indisposition. I am going to become your physician myself, and 
I'll tell you what my prescription is : you must spend next fall 
and winter in Mississippi. Judge Guion and his wife will prob- 
ably visit Portland in the summer; if so, you must return with 
them to Vicksburg. If they do not visit the North, I wiU come 
on after you myself. I think it will cure you entirely. Mrs. 
Guion is very anxious for you to come, and you will, I doubt 
not, find a winter in the South both pleasant and useful. 

Now, you can talk over this plan as soon as you please with 
mother and Abby, and let me know whether you make mouths 
at my medicine or are you willing to take it. In the meantime 
you must try and get as well as possible, so as to be able to 
stand the fatigue of the journey. I have no news for you. The 
weather is unpleasant ; Congress is dull, and I have a bad cold. 
These are the most important items of information which I can 
furnish you. I have not heard from you for a fortnight. My 
love and best wishes are with you all. 

Your ilffectionate brother. 

Sbaegbnt. 



44 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

TO HIS YOUNGEST BROTHER. 

Washington Citt, Feb. 5, 1889. 

Dear George : — |; 

I have made inquiry in relation to your passport, 
and find you will have to apply for it in person. You obtain it 
from the Secretary of State. You can either come on now and 
get it, or wait till just before you leave. I shall get some letters 
from Mr. Clay and others for you. 

We have nothing new here; and I am becoming extremely 
anxious to leave for Vicksburg. I think I shall go before the end 
of the session ; perhaps the last af next week or the first of week 
after. Upon this, however, I have not positively determined. 
I overcame my laziness last week sufficiently to write out my 
speech upon the Defalcations. It came out in the Intelligencer 
yesterday morning, and I have it also printing in pamphlet form , 
for home consumption. It is not a very argumentative speech ; 
indeed, the subject-matter did not well admit of it. Still there is, 
I think, truth enough in the picture to show a very depraved 
state of political morals in the country, and almost to make one 
doubt of the permanency of a Government which can be so badly 
administered. The speech, of course, does not contain one-half 
of what I said ; I wrote it more for use than show ; and made it 
short and spicy, to attract the popular taste. Wise's speech is 
too long and documentary — few will read it through ; you can, 
therefore, be as free as you please of your criticisms, for you see 
I have a plenty of excuses for any defects you may discover in it. 
I will send you some copies as soon as it is out. 

I wrote to Anna a few days since, in relation to her spendiug 
next winter at the South. If Judge Guion and wife do not come 
North, I will come for her myself; so the thing is all settled, 
except her consent. 

I have not received an answer yet. Write me often, for your 

letters gratify me much. 

Your affectionate brother, 

SSARGBNT. 



LETTERS. 



45 



TO HIS SISTEE ANNA. 

Washington City, Feb. 10, 1839. 

Mt Dear Sister : — 

I received, last night, your pretty little scolding 
letter, and was pleased to see in its sauciness and spirit indica- 
tions of an improvement in your health. I like your nice long 
letters very much, and deem it particularly fortunate that I an: 
not the only specimen of garrulity and ( pardon me, I quote from 
your own letter) '■'■ iynpudence^^ in the family. However, when 
I get you out at that quiet, well-behaved place called Vicksburg, 
no doubt you will improve very much in this respect. 

I am extremely sorry that I cannot come home before going 
South, but it will be impossible. I have important business in 
Mississippi which requires my attention, even now, and I think 
I shall have to start before the end of the session. 

There is nothing new here, except a somewhat pleasant change 
in the weather. By-the-by, I have not yet sent you my speech ; 
but expect it from the printer to-day, and will send you a pack- 
age. You may try your skill at criticism upon it, if you please ; 
come, I dare you. 



House of Representatives, March 3, 1839. 

My Dear Sister : — 

I seize a moment, in the midst of the confusion, 
which now reigns triumphant in this Babel Hall, to drop you a 
line and a kind salutation, before turning my face towards my 
Southern home. I leave this .evening, ma Baltimore, "Wheeling, 
&c. I shall not be able to visit New York, having stayed here 
two weeks longer than I intended. 

I have been very busy lately, as you will have seen by the 
papers. Among other things, I undertook the very unprofitable 
task of purifying the House of a great blackguard, by the name 

of . I did not succeed ; but I think a lesson was given, 

which such fellows will not soon forget. It was quite an amus- 
ing scene throughout. 

My speech on the Defalcations has been very well received by 



46 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

the public, and had some liigh comphments. Some parts of it 

I do not much approve myself; but they were thrown in for the 

people, whose taste, yon know, must be consulted as well as 

one's own. I stood bv Maine in the debate, which we have ha^ 

in relation to the troubles there; rjiough I did not, and do not 

ai)preliend any great danger of war. 

You must not fail to write me often, and good eong^ nier 

letters ; and so must Abby. Farewell, I am called away. M7 

love to you all. 

Your affectionate brother, 

SEAJiGENT. 

No one could read the whole of Mr. Prentiss' correspon- 
dence from Washington without feehng that, however hi? 
talents and principles may have qualified him, he yet had 
DO heart for public life. He was neither ambitious of its 
honors nor disposed to undergo its proper labors ; while hp 
loathed the selfish and tricksy ways which the mere partjr 
politician is wont to travel. 

But the tone of this correspondence is to be explained, in 
part, by the state of his private affairs, which neglect, 
the heavy expenses incident to two elections, and other 
causes, had thrown into great embarrassment. The fact 
that he was thought to be very rich, and was known also to 
be utterly careless of money, was not likely to blunt the 
edge of Washington temptations. To a young man of 
wealth, of generous, unsuspecfmg disposition and excitable 
temperament, those temptations are too apt to prove fatal. 
How many have fallen victims to them ! To how many a 
one has going to Congress been like the case of the hapless 
insect that flies straight into the spider's web ! On reach- 
ing Washington, Mr. Prentiss became at once an object of 
interest, and most flattering attentions, to some of the first 
and best men in the nation ; but his society was also w^armly 
courted by persons of another description — by men given t« 



HIS CONGRESSIONAt, LIFE 41 

play and convivial excess. It ^YOukl be ^ injii'y to tb<s 
claims of truth not to state frankly that he fell more or les* 
into the associations of the latter class. Particulars migh* 
be given ; but they would not enhance the clearness oj 
force of the truth, that no man can violate safely the laws a' 
prudence and moral order. Whatever may be his excuses • 
however free may be his motives from the baser passions of 
avarice and mere selfish appetite, still retribution is sure, 
sooner or later, to overtake his transgressions. It would be 
wrong not to bear witness that there was no exception in 
the present instance. The '' wild oats," sown during a few 
years of pecuniary prosperity, brought forth, in due time, 
a rich harvest of thorny cares, debts and mortifications. 

In a previous chapter, allusion was made to the prevalence 
of gambling in the Southwest twenty-five or thirty years ago. 
In what might be called the initiatory and milder forms, it 
was a wide-spread social custom — forming oftentimes a 
sequel to the fashionable dinner, or an accompaniment of the 
evening party. The game of cards was closely allied to the 
side-board and the wine-cup. In its more express and ma- 
lign forms, the evil haunted steamboat saloons, bar-rooms, 
and the public house — not to speak now of the places and 
persons specially devoted to its service. It is a vice of 
easy growth in a new country, where female hifluence is 
scarcely organized, and where the population is largely com- 
posed of young men, who associate chiefly with each other, 
have many idle hours upon their hands, and no home in 
which to spend them. In such a community there is a social 
void and a craving for mental stimulus, which too often seek 
relief in the game of chance. It is a most seductive vice, 
and seems often to possess a singular fascination even for men 
of intellect and culture. The authentic annals of gambling 
and its consequences among the higher classes of English and 
Continental society during the last hundred years, would 



48 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

afford one of the most instructive, as well as one of the 
saddest, chapters in the history of human nature. Nor 
would a similar narrative respecting our own country be 
less admonitory. It is a lamentable fact, that some of our 
most distinguished public men have, at some period of their 
lives, been addicted to this insane practice. How often 
have pecuniary ruin, dishonor, intemperance, misanthropy, 
and a sea of other troubles, followed in its track I Its 
effects always are and must be dreadful. It is, to use the 
words of Holy Writ respecting the tongue, an unruly evil, 
full of deadly jpoison — and is set on fire of hell. Nobody 
can even occasionally indulge in it, and that for the mere 
excitement, without paying a severe penalty. The present 
is a case in point. Several of Mr. Prentiss' intimate friends — 
men of highest standing in society, and whose influence over 
him was not small — unfortunately were no strangers to the 
hazards of the table. Probably with them, too, the attrac- 
tion was chiefly mental, and not pecuniary. Such was, 
unquestionably the case with him. Many anecdotes might 
be related illustrating the fact, and proving in the clearest 
manner, that motives wholly aUen from that of gain, beguiled 
him into this practice. To cite the testimony of one who 
knew him long : " As I understand it, he never played as 
others do. In short, it was not a habit ; not a daily, nor a 
weekly, but an occasional thing — a sort of wild impulse, the 
more irrepressible from its infrequency and suddenness. No 
one, who has ever felt the passion without the sordid ava- 
rice, which games of chance create, can call it anything but 
an intellectual fascination^'' 

The following is the substance of another testimony — that 
of a gentleman of great worth, and among Mr. P.'s truest 
as well as his most intimate friends in the Southwest : 

I carefully studied his character iu reference to this point, 



HIS COXGRESSIONAL LIFE. 49 

making iDquiries of others as I liad opportunity ; for it always 
struck me with wonder that a man of his great intellect and supe- 
rior moral qualities should ever have fallen into such a practice. 
I am perfectly satisfied that it was only an occasional thing, not 
a habit. I speak confidently, for, as 1 have said, I closely scru- 
tinized the matter. It is clear to me, that the evil grew out of a 
highly excitable, morbid temperament, acted upon by social 
stimulus and the pressure of associates not always of the wisest 
stamp. Indeed, it is not to be denied that Mr. P. was extremely 
unfortunate in some of the men with whom, from a variety of 
causes, he was thrown into intimate relations and companion- 
ship. It was his weakness — though owing in part also to his 
good nature— that he could not readily say " no " to this class of 
his acquaintances. 

The fact here alluded to, that he was not always fortu- 
nate in the character of his associates, furnishes a key to 
much that was faulty in his life. Some, who affected to be 
his friends, were in truth his worst enemies. After he 
became rich, especially, such false friends swarmed about 
him, gained his confidence, searched out the weak points of 
his character — his pride of will and morbid craving for 
excitement — played upon his artless, unsuspecting temper, 
and generous self-oblivion, ministered diligently to his love of 
mirth — and then did what they could to despoil him of his 
money, or which pleased some of them still better, to draw 
him down to their own level. 

The design of the foregoing remarks has been to explain, 
not to palliate. The narrative itself, as we proceed, will 
supply a further clue to the case, by shedding new light 
upon the character of its subject. 

The disgust, with which Mr. Prentiss sometimes referred 
to his Congressional life, was doubtless owing, in no small 
degree, to the causes just mentioned. The brilliant success 
which marked his entrance upon the national arena, never 

VOL. II. 3 



60 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

effaced the painful associations connected with it. He then 
had such an experience, both of his own moral weakness, and 
of the greedy selfishness, depravity and meanness of others, 
as cast a dark shadow over many coming years. 

But there was a bright side also to his recollections of 
Washington. Some of his warmest and noblest friendships 
were there formed. When, in a genial mood, he delighted 
to relate anecdotes of the great men of the nation, of both 
parties, to describe their characters, and say what he thought 
of their political opinions or of their oratory. The portraits 
he would sometimes draw of Clay, Webster, White, Critten- 
den, Preston and other of his political friends whom he 
admired and honored, were very spirited. He once gave me 
a charming description of John Quincy Adams, and of the 
almost boyish eagerness with which the members would 
gather around him whenever that ''old man eloquent" 
rose to speak. His portraitures of this kind indicated a 
rare faculty for observing and individualizing character. 



MR, wise's reminiscences. 51 



CHAPTER XV. 

Reminiscences of Mr. Prentiss by Henry A. Wise. 

This seems to be an appropriate place for the following 
reminiscences, furnished by the Hon. Henry A. Wise, of 
Virginia, one of Mr. Prentiss' colleagues in Congress, and 
since United States Minister to Brazil. They relate 
chiefly to the period embraced in the four preceding chap- 
ters, and supply many incidents not contained in them. 
They also touch upon some points already mentioned ; but 
not at all in the way of bare repetition. Such an effusion 
of true-hearted friendship is too rare a gem to be broken ; 
and I feel sure every reader will thank me for giving it just 
as it is, entire and undivided 

Richmond, Va., Feb, 21, 1851. 
My deae Sm : — 

This moment brought me yours of the 19th inst., 
and I pause not to give you some reminiscences of your lamented 
brother, my friend S. S. Peentiss, as they rise and revive him 
and the past to my mind's eye. Oh ! that I could depict him as 
he really in heart was, far above his own lofty genius, and further 
still above his external self, as he appeared to the world. A 
deep interest, indeed, I do take in his memory. I shall give you 
the simple truth of the impressions he made upon me — impres- 
sions as strong as ever were made upon me by any man — ^but 
without reference, particularly, to dates or chronological order 
of events. Most of the scenes I went through with him must 
remain unwritten ; but I can safely say, that not one was bare 



59 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

of incidents, rich and rare — not one was stained by grossness, or 
soiled with shame. He was a study to me from the beginning 
to the end of our intimacy. That intimacy is still cherished as 
one of the precious pearls which I was so fortunate as to find on 
the desert-strand of life. I loved him, I honored him, I mourn 
him. 

The first I knew of him was in the Mississippi contested 
election. When Congress met, he and Word, his colleague, had 
not arrived. A caucus of the party to which I then belonged, 
was called in respect to what should be done with that contest. 
T remember the debate well. The plan of proceedings was 
discussed and settled upon ; when some one proposed that, on 
the arrival of the two new members, Messrs. Word and Prentiss, 
they should be taken somewhat in pupilage, and be put in train- 
ing for their parts; that some able and experienced members 
should be selected to procure for them the precedents, prepare 
arguments, and aid them before the Committee and the House. 
At this suggestion, Wm. 0. Dawson, now Senator from Georgia, 
rose and said : "■ Oh I gentlemen, you need be at no such pains; 
you will have no babes to nurse. One of those men is a host in 
himself, who can take care of Mississippi and rather help us to 
boot, than require our pap-spoons. He is not only full-grown, 
though low in stature and very lame in gait, but a giant, who 
is a head and shoulders taller than any man I know, here or 
elsewhere, for the task of prompting and defending himself. We 
need not say Up-a-dkldy to him." Well, thought I, he must be 
something more than I am accustomed to among men, to deserve 
this extravagant boast of him. We'll see, when this giant-dwarf 
comes, whether a little aid won't help him, like other men. 

Soon afterwards he came. I saw him ; that was enough to 
show me that he was a singularly marked man. His eye was 
deep in his head— large, clear, full of animation and of hidden fires. 
It had a look deeper than its set; when looked into, it returned 
a glance, which, like that of Lara, " dared you to forget." But 
there was a buoyancy in his presence, which seemed as if it 
would leap from battle to play, from play to battle ; and a good- 
ness^ which said to me at least, "Let's you and I be friends!" 



MR. wise's reminiscences. . 53 

Spirit responded to spirit at the first sight without a word, I 
thought of this our instant liking for each other — though we were 
both prepared for it — when I afterwards heard Daniel Webstei* 
tell the anecdote of a transcendental sudden love between two 
German strangers: "Sir, a sudden passion seizes me!" But 
between your brother, and myself it was true and approved by 
time and trial. His head, I saw, was two stories high, with a 
large attic on top, above which was his bump of comparison 
and veneration. Of the latter he had a vast deal. He actually 
admired, and reverenced often, gifts and genius far inferior to 
his own. My habits were not like his, and at first we were not 
thrown much with each other in social contact. He was, at 
that time, excessively convivial. The moment he arrived, a set 
of roisterers challenged him at once to a continued round of 
revelry, and I said to myself and others: "This Mississippi 
wonder will cease, if he does not take heed!" Word, bis col- 
league, was a modest and amiable, and very sensible man, who 
without reserve acknowledged his superiority. When I spoke 
to Word about the need of study and preparation on Peentiss' 
part for the approaching debate, his eye twinkled with mirth. 
"Let him alone! ISTever do you mind! Wait and hear him!" 
That was all the return I got for my apprehension. Well ; I did 
wait to see ; it was all that I was allowed to do. Tlie day at 
length arrived. Peentiss' turn came. He threw himself on 
the arena at a single bound, but not in the least like a harlequin. 
He stepped, no stranger, on the boards of high debate — he 
" raised the eye to heaven and trod with giant steps." Never did 
I see the " gaudia certaminis " so beam and shine and glow from 
mortal face. I never shall forget the feelings he inspired, and 
the triumph he won. But there's the speech, or at least a frag- 
ment of it, surviving him. There's the figure of the sta?- and 
the strijje ; go read it — read it now that his eye is di4n and his 
muscles cease to move the action to the word ; then imagine 
what it was as his tongue spoke it, his eye looked it, his hand 
gesticulated its thoughts ! 

He at once, after this first efibrt, ascended to his pinnacle of 
place in the House of Representatives. The contested election 



S4 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

was sent back to tlie people. On the eve of their departing for 
Mississippi, the Whigs gave a public dinner to Prentiss and 
Word. It was as elite an assembly as I ever saw gathered in 
the Metropolis. The Hon. Hugh L. White, the Cato of the 
country, presided; and Clay was there, and Webster, and their 
peers from both houses of Congress, and the most select of 
visitors and the populace. Prentiss, that night, was reserved 
both in sentiment and style. He assumed tliat he was yet to " win 
his spurs," and would not dare, or deign to talk of deeds, until 
he had returned from the crusade of the canvass, a knight of the 
Holy War for popular and State Eights against the worse than 
Turk of party. 

But that night of speeches I shall never forget, because it 
sealed my intimacy with your brother. Many members spoke 
when toasted, and many toasted to draw out speeches. Clay 
utterly failed to charm the assembly ; his wings seemed to be 
wet, and they flapped and floundered in the dust.- Webster rose, 
and yawned, and gaped a bad apology for not trying to entertain 
us. After awhile he was called on again, and he responded to 
the call by punning on the names of senators from Mississippi. 
That State, he said, had sent a WalJcer, then a Trotter, and 
next she was likely to go off in a Gallop-mg consumption. 
He sipped his toast and down he sat again to the disappointment 
(of everybody. The scene was dull, it began to grow late, and 
Judge White called me to his place of presiding and retired. 
Two or three score guests remained until past twelve, and at 
about one o'clock some one — G-en. Waddy Thompson, of S. C, 
I think — rose and said that the speeches of the occasion had 
been execrable, that no one had tried to touch a chord of feeling, 
or to draw a cork even of wit. He upbraided Webster, espe- 
cially, with failing to attempt to speak with effect ; and, as a 
Southern man, appealed to him, Webster, a Northern man, to 
touch the theme of the Union. Clapping of hands commenced ; 
Webster! Webster! The Union! The Union! Webster! 
The Union! He rose and commenced in strains of solemn 
earnestness. As he went on, he warmed; he grew taller; his 
large ox-eyes expanded ; his complexion grew darker ; hi? 



MR. wise's reminiscences. 5S 

heavy arm and hand worked like a tilt-Lanimer of Vulcan., 
beating out thoughts for the gods. He rose to the Empyrean^ 
and yet seemed low down to us, because his thoughts were so 
large that, though high enough, if small, to be out of sight, they 
compassed us all about with their mighty shadows, and the very 
clou.ds of them were luminous with aurora-like light. Ho 
brought forty men to their feet, tlieir hands resting on the 
dining table ; their eyes gazing at him, and their lips parted, as 
if they were panting for breath. By and by he came to point 
the speech with its moral, and exclaimed: "And you, Southern 
brethren! shall wy children be ahens to your children? shall 
your children be aliens to my children?'^ This he said so 
touchingly, so appealing to the heart, so generously tendering 
love and confidence, that — heavens! what a burst of feeling! 

The great tears rolled down many a manly cheek, and , 

of Georgia, exclaimed: — " There^ now! didii' t Ihnow it? hut my 
people wouldnH Relieve this! Fll tell them as soon as I go 

home !" In the midst of the excitement, , of Ky,, in 

a perfect frenzy, seized an empty champagne bottle, and crying 
out "Reform or Revolution! Liberty or Death!" threw it at 
Webster's head, which he would, doubtless, have hit but for my 
jarring his arm by catching at it as he threw. "What a magnifi- 
cent structure he would have destroyed, liad he hit it! Thus 
ended the last act of that night, and your brother went to my 
room and lodged until morning. 

He then, for the first time, gave me his private history. I 
perceived that his feelings were morbid respecting his lameness. 
Indeed, he told me that he had gone out alone at the midnight 
honr, and bewailed in despair the marring of his fair proportions. 
I begged him to get married, assuring him that he was wholly 
mistaken in virtuous intelligent women, if he imagined that his 
lameness forbade the bans of matrimony to him. He was much 
soothed by this assurance, and promised to seek more the 
humanizing society of woman, and to try to love. He did so, 
and I always thought he was drawn to me, by this persuasion, 
and by my always refusing to join him in his conviviality. 

He went back to Mississippi, and went through the contested 



66 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

election. He made almost preternatural efforts to carry tli« 
State. When lie returned, he told me many anecdotes of the 
canvass of exquisite richness; but 1,000 majority and more did 
not satisfy him. His conception of the virtue of the people was 
very high, and he expected that they would, in spontaneous 
outburst of masses, rebuke the outrage, that had been perpe- 
trated upon their right of representation. Party ties had more 
influence over them than he chose to imagine they would, and 
he never considered his second return a triumph. He denounced 
it bitterly as a defeat. In respects like that he was very hard 
to satisfy, so high was his sense of honor and virtue, and so 
much did he despise mere expediency as compared with justice 
and right. " Just to think," said he, " that in one of the towns 
I owed all my votes to a menagerie." He then gave me the 
most ludicrous account of his being followed from Dan to Beer- 
sheba by a showman, who had an elephant, a Bengal tiger, an 
ourang-outang, &c., &c. The show pursued him from crowd to 
crowd, usually a little in his rear, so that just as he w^ould get 
into the height of his argument, behold the elephant approach- 
ing! and away would rush the people; he, Prentiss, saying: — 
" Fellow citizens, I always defer in your presence to the Asiatic 
stranger!" At last, near the end of the canvass, the showman 
at some town came forward, and complimenting him with 
thanks for his patient forbearance in never complaining of the 
interruptions of the Asiatic stranger, tendered the services of 
himself and retinue in the way of a free exhibition for the bene- 
fit of Mr. Prentiss and his popularity. Overcome by the kind- 
ness, he consented, and the showman gave the " ladies and 
gentlemen," an extra and unparalleled description of his wild 
beasts — such, I am sure, as can be found in no book of natural 
history. But this got votes, which no argument or eloquence 
could have won. His own descriptions of these scenes beat all 
comedy. 

Never, after his return, did he enter regularly upon the enter- 
prise of debate, nor would he deign to drudge on any one of the 
committees. He thus did himself great injustice, for his forte 
was rapid execution and dispatch of business, while no man could 



MR. wise's reminiscences. 51 

excel him in the '"'•fortiter in re " of debate. His wit was ever 
flowing, his spirits always high, and the whole ideality of the 
man, in fact, was too exuberant for the dull didactics of the 
politician. His very 2^<^^fyism was nothing else nor less than 
■[)UVQ patriotism^ and he loathed all tactics or tricks. He never 
made other than a real issue of right and Avrong, to be tried by 
the moral ordeal alone, and could not be induced to jmrtake in 
mere partisan warfare. Once I knew him to be awfully severe 

on Dr, D , of Ohio, because he took him for a mere party 

bully. Sometimes he would burst forth in invective, irony, sar- 
casm, and strains of indignant eloquence, equalling any man who 
ever spoke. At one time the Treasury reports were very con- 
fused and involved, covering up and concealing, in fact, the 
amount of the public debt. The appropriations were cut short, 
without sufficient reasons appearing from the state of the public 
fisc as explained by the Department. Many objects of primary 
importance failed of supplies. The light-houses, among other 
objects of expenditure, were stinted in the estimates. Seeing 
the reason to be a deficit in the Treasury, which the administra- 
tion did not wish to expose, and determining to draw from them 
the admission of the fact, which they had denied and concealed, 
I denounced their policy as being inimical to the important 
objects for which they had failed to recommend adequate appro- 
priations. In respect to the lights along the coasts, I accused 
them, in figurative language, of meaning " to put out the eyes of 
the Oceany The expression seemed to strike Peextiss' fancy, 
and it alone, as he told me, inspired him to speak. He rose and 
made one of his most powerful efforts. I remember his loftiness 
on that occasion, and I was the more proud of him because he 
always said that speech was more mine than his, inasmuch as 
I had " caused the wit." His mode of complimenting was so 
generous, that it made one yield him the rivalry. He tried to 
make it seem that he entered the Hsts but to do homage to a 
friend — and not to do the same thing, as he undoubtedly did it, 
surpassingly better. 

His goodness of heart was very sound, and very refined, too. 
One evening he and a friend of his were invited with me to take 

VOL. II, 2* 



58 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

a terrapiL supper at Col. John McCarty's rooms. We spent the 
evening jovially, and at a moment when I least expected any mani- 
festation of aftection from Prentiss, he came to me, unobserved 
by the others, t-ook a small stud from my shirt-bosom, an urn in 
gold enamel (I wonder if it be among his relics), and put in its 
place a pin of great price, set in diamonds. He demanded the 
exchange, and said it was for something he had heard and seen 
— he did not mention what — to be a memorial. I tried to get at 
his meaning but he would never tell me. I always took it to 
signify his approval of my advice to bury the morbid sensibility 
about his lameness, and to brighten his existence by taking a 
wife. A few evenings before, he had attended a party with me, 
and I had forced him into the presence of a lady, and introduced 
hjm to her, at the moment she was to step into the dance. He 
got involved in the mazes of the cotillion, was embarrassed by 
his being in the way, became exceedingly mortified, and retired. 
I found him that night in "the horrors" from the incident, and 
shamed him into self-complacency. He always seemed grateful 
for being made able and willing to cast off that weakness. I am 
sure that if he had married earlier, he would have been a hap- 
pier and a more useful man. His morbid feelings in reference to 
his lameness were, doubtless , at the bottom of no small portion 
of his occasional recklessness, and apparent disregard of the 
opinion of others. In talking on this subject, he once said to 
me : "I delight to climb great heights on the perpendicular sides 
of rocks, whence the staid fathers of comely daughters will 
expect me certainly to fall. I sport in shocking their apprehen- 
sions, to show them that, like the chamois, I am sure-footed at 
least, and can walk and skip where other men dare not tread 
without certain destruction." 

Soon after this conversation, a scene occurred between ns, 
which I shall never forget. It was at the entrance of a faro- 
bank. I declined to accompany him, and said : " That is one of 
your high rocks, and it has no foothold. Kemember the fathers, 
and the comely daughters too, have a right to forbid your walk- 
ing there; it is a monstrous height of extravagance, from which 
you even must fall and be crushed, and you have no right to set 



MR. wise's reminiscexces. 6& 

Buch an example." He said he would go alone, ^ eni on, and I 
followed him to the head of the stairs, and stopped him. Look- 
ing him true in the face, I said : " You are rich in everything. 
You have a mother and sisters — are they provided for by you ?" 
He turned black in the face, the veins in his temples curdled, I 
expected he would strike me with his cane. It was the only 
moment in our acquaintance when I had reason to suppose we 
would no longer be friends. " Do you take me for a dog?" said 
he. " Yes," said I, " baser than a dog, if you have the heart to 
give your abundance to the Cerberi of faro-bank hells instead of 
giving it to a mother !" He dropped tears, took me by the arm, 
went in, bet a few moments, and came out with me, completely 
subdued. He would, ever after that, permit me to chide him 
like a little child. He, too, had done his part in saving me from 
sin. Severe conflicts had passed in the House between myself 
and one of his opponents (Mr. Gholson). I drew a challenge, 
and offered to put it into the hands of your brother. He 
declined altogether to take it, unless I would submit implicitly 
my honor to his discretion. I did so, not imagining his object 
in obtaining the pledge — a pledge I would not have made but for 
the conviction that in all such cases it is proper to be exacted 
of a principal by one called on to act as a second. As soon as he 
got the pledge, he took the challenge, slept upon it a night, and 
brought it back to me, saying that he had reflected upon it well, 
and concluded definitively, that I was neither called upon nor 
authorized to send a challenge at all in the case ; that lie had wit- 
nessed the whole scene, and I was bound to forbear the call, upon 
every consideration of necessity, justice, or honor ; and that no 
one could fairly bear it as a second. In case I was challenged 
he would act, but not otherwise. On another occask)n, at 
toy request, he saved a young friend of mine from a duel; 
and his influence, in such matters, was always potential for 
peace. 

His kindness to a little body-servant, named Burr, who attended 
him at "Washington, used to attract and amuse me. He gave • 
Burr his own selection of wardrobe, and the boy dressed him- 
self like a Merry Andrew — and a plenty of pocket-money, and he 



60 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

did nothing but play at marbles, whilst his master had to wait 
on himself. When on a visit at Portland, his native place, in 
the summer of 1837, he offered Burr his freedom, and tried hard 
to persuade him to remain JSTorth, but the boy would not leave 
him. While at Portland, he told his master, one day, that a gen- 
tleman in black had asked him whether he " wouldn't like to be 
free ?" " Yes," Burr replied, he " liked it very much." " But," 
said the man in black, " do you think yourself free now ?" " If 
I ain't, what am I?" " Why, wouldn't you like to work, and 
have all your earnings to yourself?" "No!" "Why?" "Be- 
cause I don't like to work. I plays, and Mr. Peextiss finds all 
the money." "What, then, did he say. Burr?" "Why, he 
said, sir, ' don't doubt you must be a natural fool ! ' Not so 
big a fool, though, as he thought." 

During my motion for the investigation of the Swartwout 
affair, Peextiss was most efiicient in his aid. His speech, illus- 
trating from Paul Clifford the pretensions of certain men in 
power, is an exquisite piece of ridicule and satire. He could 
thunder invective like Chatham. For an example, see his speech 

against Commodore E . His expressions of denunciation and 

scornful wrath were terrific ; but his pathos was winningly 
sweet, whilst his bursts of the joyful bounded like elastic balls. 

The popular assembly was the place of his proudest exhi- 
bitions. To the multitude he was as a trumpet. He said, " Fel- 
low-Citizens ! " and, auribus erectis^ the people stood still, or 
swayed to and fro, or shouted, or were sad, smiled or frowned, 
at his magic will. He, Richard H. Menifee, and myself, were 
specially invited, just after the adjournment of Congress, in the 
summer of 1838, to address a Mass Meeting at Havre de Grace, 
Maryland. In steamers crowded, and with flags streaming, we 
left Baltimore, and reached the stand in the morning. We 
waited hours and hours, and the cry was, " Still they come ! '* 
It was a gathering of the substantial population from far and 
near — of fathers, sons and daughters — husbands and wives — 
wealth and wit, and beauty and fashion. A fairer, more 
respectable, or more patriotic assembly of the people I never 
witnessed. It was near the middle of July, and the day sultry to 



MR. wise's reminiscences. 61 

wilting. I "was sick and overcome by the heat — so relaxed, in fact, 
that I could not make a tolerable apology for not attempting a 
speech. Menifee followed, and was not himself either. Peextiss 
was shouted for, and came up — as he always did, nothing affecting 
Tiim — like a courser in perfect keeping. His 'physique was won- 
derful in that respect ; his digestion was good, his body sound, 
and he could bear every extreme variation of temperature and 
habit. He was never out of sorts, and at once lighted up this 
scene. Said he : '' Fellow-Citizens — by the Father of Waters at 
New Orleans I have said Fellow-Citizens — on the banks of the 
beautiful Ohio I have said Fellow-Citizens — here I say Fellow- 
Citizens — and a thousand miles beyond this, North, thanks be 
to God ! I can still say, i^eZZ6>«j-Citizens ! " Thus, in a single 
sentence, he saluted his audience, drew every man, woman, and 
child near to him, made himself dear to them, and by a word cov- 
ered the continent — by a line mapped the United States from the 
Gulf to the Lakes — by a greeting, warm from the heart, beam- 
ing from the countenance, depicted the whole country, its pro- 
gress, development, grandeur, glory and union ! Every hat was 
whirled in the air, every handkerchief was waving, the welkin 
rung with hurrahs — the multitude heaved up to the stand, 
stood on tip-toe, and shouted cheer after cheer, as if wild with 
joy and mad with excitement. Never, for one moment, did he 
relax his grasp upon that mass of human passions. He rose 
higher and higher, went up, and up, and on, and on, and on — 
far, far away like the flight of the carrier-pigeon ! It was the 
music of sweet sounds, and anon it was the roar of the elements. 
Figures bubbled up, and poured themselves forth like springs in 
a gushing fountain, which murmur and leap awhile amid moun- 
tain rocks, then run smooth and clear though green and flowery 
valleys, until at length, swollen into mighty rivers, they roll 
onward to the ocean ! The hunian reeds bowed and waved 
before his blasts, or lifted their heads and basked in his sunshine.* 

♦ A correspondent of the N. Y. Commercial Advertiser^ writing from Havre de 
Grace, July 11, 1838, gives a glowing account of this barbecue. Here follow a few 
Bentences. Of Mr. Wise he says: — " He was Wise all over. Ardent, spirit-stirring 
and patriotic, he flashed in upon the dark masses of locofocoism and corruption, 



62 MEMOIR OF 3. S. PRENTISS. 

I was not sick when he was done. His clothes were dripping 
through with perspiration. We sat together in the moonhght 
the night of that day, on the deck of the ferry-boat, and he talked 
philosophy and poetry until morning. 

Travelling in such a crowd, he was in danger of losing his 
baggage, and the night at Havre de Grace he could not find his 
linen to change. Burr was of no service to him, but more trou- 
blesome than his trunks. He threatened to leave the boy by 
dodging him. On the way going up the Delaware, every time 
Burr missed his master, he wjuld poke into the crowd, touch 
me, and inquire : "Mr. Wise, do you know where Mr. Peextiss 
is ?" for he always called him Mr. Peentiss. He had no idea 
of losing his white slave. 

Peentiss' style was that of a torrent. There was nothing arti- 
ficial about him. He was the most natural orator I ever heard 
open lips. What he knew, that he spoke right on. He did not 
know that he was moving his hands when he gesticulated ; and 
yet every muscle in his frame seemed to crawl upon his bones 
as his mighty mind throed to deliver forth his thoughts. It 
was a glorious boy reciting a lesson which put his mind in a glow. 
His gestures were not graceful, but the heaving of hig breast was 
actually sublime. There was speaking in his nostril. His eye 
was a flame of fire. His very hair was the mane of a war-horse. 
Yet all was perfectly natural. 

His facility of mastering an entire book at one glance — a law 
case by a look — was so great that he had little need to labor ; 
yet he labored, as he told me, more than his most intimate 



exposing them in all their hideousness. He is the man for the times." Of Meni- 
fee, he writes : — " What a head this young man wears ! In his bosom beats a 
heart filled with the purest patriotism. He was listened to with rapture." He 
thus refers to Mr. P.'s address :— " And now all eyes were turned on Prentiss, of 
Mississippi ! Well, I had never heard him, and was charged to the muzzle with 
expectation. His fine, large head, and spirit-speaking eyes, and mouth formed 
for eloquence, gave an earnest of what was coming. I do not know how to make 
you comprehend the powers of this mighty man. He is like a professor of arms — 
a giant in the midst of his own armory, in which is every weapon of the best 
materials, and highly polished, for defence and oflfence. He spoke upwards of 
one hour and a half. The multitude cheering, amid the rays of a burning sun, and 
Bttll demanding him to go on ! go on /"— Eo. 



\ 



MR. wise's reminiscences. 63 

friends supposed. His memory was so quick and retentive that 
hi had rarely to look twice, or to pause Upon a page. The Bible 
and Shakspeare he knew from lid to lid. He had memorized 
60 much that, as he himself said, he knew not, at times, whether 
he was speaking his own thoughts and figures and language, or 
those of others. Images of comparison and illastration came so 
free to him, that his difficulty was in selecting which to use and 
which to throw away. His chief fault, therefore, was in a waste 
of figures ; his arguments being, sometimes, buried in tropes — 
and yet the argumentative was really his forte. He was, indeed, 
a miracle in his gifts and in his character. Every trait of his 
noble nature was in excess ; his very virtues leaned to faults, and 
his faults themselves to virtues. The like of him I never shall 
see again, so compounded was he of all sorts of contradictions, 
without a single element in him to disgust — without one charac- 
teristic which did not attract and charm. His public exhibitions 
were all splendid and glorious. He did everything he attempted 
magnificently well ; and yet, as I knew him, he could hardly be 
called a man of business. He was a natural spendthrift, and yet 
despised debt and dependence. He was heedless of all conse- 
quences, yet of the soundest judgment in council, and discre- 
tion in movement. He was almost the only man I ever saw 
whom I never heard utter a scandal, and he had the least charity 
of any man I ever saw for all kinds of baseness, or meanness. 
He was continually without ceasing quoting classic lore, and not 
the least of a pedant. He was brave to foolhardiness, and 
wouldn't hurt Uncle Toby's fly. 

His domestic afiections were truly tender and beautiful. He 
almost adored his mother. All his knowledge of the Bible, 
especially, and all the good and grace that was developed in 
him, he attributed to the teachings at her knee. He was most 
eloquent when her morale was the subject of discourse. May I, 
my dear sir, inquire, as Joseph inquired of his brethren for his 
father— is that lady "still alive?" He loved you all with 
exceeding love and devotion. 

He was very refined as a patriot, in never drawing local 
comparisons. No man must attack nor North nor South where 



64 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

he was. The one was his birth-place, where his mother dwelt ; 
the other was his foster-place, where he met every generous 
tender of a home and friends, as devoted as ever cherished worth. 
He first settled in Cincinnati. I asked him, why he didn't 
remain there ? He liked nothing tame. " No," said he, " there 
I could not spend a ninepence — everything was too cheap. I 
was haunted, too, continually by the ghosts of slaughtered 
swine!" He described his entree into Natchez — "I arrived 
there with but one five dollar bill in my pocket ; I knew it was 
not a capital to trade upon, and I spent it to purchase confidence 
with. As soon as I reached the threshold of mine host, the 
Boniface of the hotel, I ordered a bottle of wine and segars, and 
called the landlord, as the only guest, to join me. He drank, and 
I told him who I was, what I wanted, and what I had to expect 
in the way of pay for my fare beyond what was before us. He 
looked at my face, said he would trust it, gave me his hand, and 
without a word more, did trust me for board and lodging until 
I got a school. I taught school, and cleared ground enough of 
birchen rods, with which I taught 'the young idea' how to 
shoot, to entitle me to a preemption right of public land !" 

"When he was in Congress, there was a galaxy of talent and 
genius there. Cushing and Evans, of New England; Corwin, 
of Ohio ; Menifee, of Kentucky ; Peyton, of Tennessee, had just 
gone out, but was fresh in the recollections of all ; Legare, of 
S. Carolina, and a host of not lesser stars; but Peextiss caught 
the eyes of those who gazed upon the lights of the capitol, as 
Boon as any one that shone there. Then he was thought and he 
thought himself rich in the good things of this world. His fortunes 
changed. The last time I saw him was in Washington, in the 
spring of 1842. We were then divided in politics, he still adhering 
to the Whigs, I adhering to Mr. Tyler's administration. He 
seemed sad and more settled. He was then married, but had to 
make up the leeway of immense losses in money. His heart had 
obviously been scathed by his disappointments and his disgust at 
mankind, whom he had before delighted to trust and confide in. 
But I hope he was a wiser and a better man. He had been taught 
Well to whom to look, but I never was informed whether he 



MR. WISE^S REMINISCENCES. 65 

ever called on that all-healing Physician, who alone can cause 
" the dumb to sjjeaTc^ the maimed to he whole^ the lame to walJc^ 
and the Uind to see^ He wrote to me at times, but 1 don't 
remember whether I ever preserved his letters. If I did, they 
are at home in Accomac. Peace to his ashes! Honored be 
his name! 

I sat right down, and have written right on this rougli sketch 
of my impressions. I send it to you unpolished and Avithout 
revision. Do with it what you please, except destroy it. If it 
is of no use, send it back to me. 

Your friend, 

Hknet a. Wise. 



66 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 



CHAPTER XYI. 

The Wilkinson Trial— Mr. Prentiss' Address to the Jury. 
^T. 30. 1839. 

On his way home from Washington City, Mr. Prentiss 
remained a week in Kentucky to assist in the defence of his 
friend Judge Wilkinson, who, in consequence of an unhappy 
affray at Louisville, had been indicted for murder. 
Mr. Thorpe thus refers to the affair* : — 

The celebrated Wilkinson trial, although not as remarkable as 
many others engaged in by Mr. Peextiss, has obtained a wide- 
spread notoriety, from the fact that it was reported, and there- 
fore more perfectly brought before the public. The particulars 
were nearly these: Some time in December, 1838, three 
gentlemen of the highest social position in Mississippi, and of a 
professional reputation, stopped at the Gait House, Louisville. 
One of the party ordered from a foshionable tailor a suit 
of clothes, which, upon being tried on, was found unsatis- 
factory by his friends; and upon the expression of this dis- 
satisfaction arose a contest between the Missi?sippians and 
the tailor, at which blows were given and received; but the 
parties separated for the time, without any material personal 
injury to each other. The tailor, attacked in his own shop, and 
feeling himself deeply wronged, proceeded to the pohce court 
for warrants, br t was obliged to go to the Gait House for the 



* American Review^ September, 1851. 



THE WILKINSON TRIAL. 67 

names of the offenders. On liis "way, he told the circamstances 
of what he conceived to be his unjust treatment to his friend?, 
and soon elicited a strong feeling of sympathy, particularh 
among that class of persons who, full of generous impulses, are 
rather thoughtless, and " like a spree." 

Whatever might have been the original intention of the tailor 
and his friends, on going to the Gait House, tlie result was one 
of the most fearful of tragedies. * * When theMississippians, 
on their Avay to supper, entered the bar-room, they were recog- 
nized, and a general melee commenced, in which figured the 
different characters alluded to in Mr. Prentiss' speech. Tlie 
Mississippians, although more or less injured, escaped, but not 
before they had killed two of the friends of the tailor, while 
he for whom they sacrificed their lives was " cut off " by the 
crowd, " and the whole occurred so quickly that he had not 
time to do anything." 

The Mississippians were strangers in Louisville ; the tailor and 
the deceased were substantial men, highly respectable in their 
connections, and in command of money and influence. The dead 
were remembered for their virtues, and lauded for the devotion 
they displayed in endeavoring to avenge the presumed wrongs 
done a friend. The excitement following the fight ran high 
among the people, and the Mississippians found the jail a neces- , 
Bary defence against the crowd that for a while swayed in 
tumultuous waves in its vicinity. But the substantial citizens 
maintained the dignity of the laws, and the Mississippians were 
peaceabl}'' brought before the proper tribunal, recognizances were 
taken, a change of venue obtained, and in a little over three 
mouths after the fatal meeting at the Gait House, the trial was 
had at Harrodsburg. 

Tlie three Mississippians were included in the indictment ; 
consequently the defence rested upon the proof of a conspiracy 
on the part of the tailor and his friends to kill or degrade the 
Mississippians, which justified the latter named in defending 
themselves to the death, and this justification had to be drawn 
• from the witnesses in a mass. 

The examination of the witnesses, as reported in the printed 



68 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

trial, is characteristic of similar proceediugs, except that many of 
the persons concerned in the affray were men of marked habits 
and original character : they therefore afforded Mr. Prentiss a 
fine field for his remarkable power of analysis. The consequence 
is, that the whole trial, under his magic influence, becomes like 
a perfectly conceived play, having every part sustained ; minghng 
up subdued humor with infinite pathos. The characters seem 
complete, and perform their parts to the very consummation, as 
if but plastic heroes in his hands. There is the opening act at 
the tailor's store ; then the preliminary excitement in the streets. 
the fearful mutterings of revenge, and the comical braggardism of 
" Bill Holmes" and his confederates ; then the thrilling challenges 
between the principal parties; the appearance of " the three" in 
the bar-room ; the rush — the fight — the death— the trial and the 
acquittal. 

The court-house in which the trial took place was crowded to 
overflowing, and among the audience were to be seen nearly two 
hun'di-ed ladies, drawn to the scene by the fascinating fame of 
Mr. Prentiss. His speech throughout was listened to with 
almost painful interest ; and in spite of the place and the 
circumstances, those that heard would occasionally give utter- 
ance to pent-up feelings that refused to be controlled. 

The speech was regarded by all who beard it as 
a masterpiece of forensic eloquence. Mr. Bullock, the 
prosecuting attorney, thus alludes to it in his summing up : 
" I bave listened with great admiration to the splendid 
effort made for the defence by one who has risen in this 
Court for the first time, though distinguished and honored 
throughout the Union for his unrivalled powers of eloquence." 
The celebrated Ben. Hardin, a cool-headed veteran advo- 
cate, who assisted the Commonwealth's attorney, in the 
opening of his reply, is no less comphmentary ; though his 
praises, it must be confessed, are a little tart. Associated 
with Mr. P., in the defence, were several of the ablest 
lawyers in Kentucky ; among them, the venerable Judge 



-V-t" THE WILKINSON TRIAL. 69 

Rowan. In the course of his address, the latter again and 
again recurs to Mr. Preutiss' speech in terms of unbounded 
admiration. He speaks of " the sunshine lustre shed upon 
the law and facts of the case by the transcend nt genius " 
of Mr. P., " with the witchery of whose eloquence and 
power of argument we have just been delighted, instructed, 
and convinced." In defending Mississippians against the 
charge of being " a lordly people, who look down with con- 
tempt upon mechanics and the laboring classes of mankind, '^ 
he says, " they looked down upon Mr. Prentiss, who travelled 
from the far East, and was engaged in teaching school 
among them — an obscure pedagogue. No ; I cannot say he 
was obscure. He could not be obscure anywhere ; the 
eruptive flashes of his great mind, like those of Etna, threw 
a blaze of light around him, which attracted, or rather 
exacted, their gaze and admiration. They sent him as their 
Representative to the Congress of the United States. 
Mr. Prentiss must pardon me, for thus going into his 
private history. I was myself an humble pedagogue. The 
difference in our condition is, that in my case the people of 
Kentucky honored me; in his, the people of Mississippi 
honored themselves." 

After these notices, the reader will, probably, be disap- 
pointed in the printed speech. It is said to be a mere 
shadow of the original, and can hardly be perused with 
patience by any one who listened to that. The following 
extract from a letter of Mr. Browne, the gentleman who 
published it, will show under what disadvantages the 
address was reported. The letter is dated at Louisville, 
several weeks after the trial : — 

I send you with this a package containing some letters expres- 
«ive of the great solicitude which prevails in this city, and 
throughout Kentucky, to have the splendid speech you made in 



70 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

HaiTodsbnrgli placed permanently on record. Trusting to the 
efficacious solicitations of my friends, whose letters I enclose, I 
shall not add another word on this branch of the subject. 

I send you such notes of your speech as I could make ; the 
great difficulty of reporting you, exactly, must always present, 
for the first time particularly, an obstacle to any reporter. To 
me it has been embarrassing, in two respects : I have not prac- 
tised reporting speeches for the last seven years, and in this 
instance I found it impossible to resist the fascination which 
spell-bound me from the mechanical operation of my task. 

I have endeavored to give you the starting subject of every 
sentence, so that the same train of thought may recur to you ; 
and I feel sanguine that you will find little difficulty in filling up 
the blanks, so as to connect the whole properly. The spaces 
generally leave room for what is necessary to complete the sens© 
with what you can supply. The order is exactly as you spoke, 
I could have filled many of the spaces with my own condensa- 
tions of your remarks, but not presuming to use language not 
exactly yours, I prefer leaving you room enough to supply the 
beautiful imagery in which you clothe your own thoughts. I 
sincerely trust these passages have not escaped your recollection. 
Mr. Murdaugh, or Judge "Wilkinson, can remind you of many. 
Pray let me have all. 

In the mere argument to evidence, I have endeavored to save 
you some trouble by translating my notes more fully than in the 
ornamental passages. 

The printers are at work upon the pamphlet and in a few days 
will be at a stand for your speech. 

Your compliance with my request, and the general request 
here, will not only confer a lasting obligation upon me, but 
delight a countless host of your warmest friends and admirers 
throughout this State. That it will give pleasure all over the 
Union cannot for a moment be doubted. 

A speech, reported in such a way, and after so long an 
interval of time, could scarcely be expected to retain its 
proper life and beauty. 



THE WILKINSON TRIAL *l\ 

The published address is as follows * : — 

May it please your Honor, and you Gentlemen of the Jury : I 
rise to address you with mingled feelings of regret and pleasure. 

I regret the occasion which has caused me thus accidentally 
and unexpectedly to appear before you, and has compelled you to 
abandon, for a time, the peaceful and quiet avocations of private 
life, for the purpose of performing tlie most important and solemn 
duty which, in the relations of civilized society, devolves upon 
the citizen. 

I regret to behold a valued and cherished friend passing 
through one of the most terrible ordeals ever invented to try the 
human feelings, or test the human character; an ordeal through 
which, I do not doubt, he will pass triumphantly and honorably, 
without leaving one blot or stain upon the fair fame that has 
been so long his rightful portion ; but through which he cannot 
pass unscathed in his sensibilities and feelings. The hghtniug 
scar will remain upon his heart; and public justice herself 
cannot, even though by acclamation through your mouths she 
proclaims his innocence, ever heal the wounds inflicted by this 
fierce and unrelenting prosecution, urged on, as it has been, by 
the demons of revenge and avarice. 

Most of all, do I regret the pubhc excitement which has pre- 
vailed in relation to these defendants; the uncharitable pre- 
judgment which has forestalled the action of law; the inhospitable 
prejudice aroused against them because they are strangers, and 
the attempt which has been, and is still making, to mingle with 
the pure stream of justice, the foul, bitter, and turbid torrent of 
private vengeance. 

But I am also gratified ; gratified that the persecution, under 
which my friends have labored, is about to cease ; that their 
characters, as well as the cause of public justice, will soon be 
vindicated; that the murky cloud which has enveloped them 
will be dissipated, and the voice of slander and prejudice sink 



♦ See Trial of Judge Wilkinson, &c. Reported by T. Egerton Browne. Louis* 
tiLLE, 1839. It is an uncommonly Interesting and instructive pamphlet. 



T2 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

into silence before the clear, stern, truthful response of this 
solemn tribunal. 

The defendants are particularly fortunate in being tried before 
such a tribunal. The bearing and character of his Honor who 
presides with so much dignity, give ample assurance that the law 
will be correctly and impartially laid down ; and I trust I may 
be permitted to remark, that I have never seen a jury in whose 
hands I would sooner entrust the cause of my clients, while, at 
the same time, I am satisfied you will do full justice to the 
Commonwealth. 

I came before you an utter stranger, and yet I feel not as 
a stranger towards you ; I have watched during the course of 
the examination the various emotions which the evidence was so 
"well calculated to arouse in your bosoms, both as men and as 
Kentuckians ; and when I beheld the flush of honorable shame 
upon your cheeks, the sparkle of indignation in your eyes, or the 
curl of scorn upon your lips, as the foul conspiracy was developed, 
I felt that years could not make us better acquainted. I saw 
upon your faces the mystic sign which constitues the bond 
of union among honest and honorable men ; and I knew that I 
was about to address those whose feelings would respond to my 
own. I rejoiced that my clients were, in the fullest sense of the 
term, to be tried by a jury of their peers. 

Gentlemen of the jury, this is a case of no ordinary character, 
and possesses no ordinary interest. Three of the most respectable 
citizens of the State of Mississippi stand before you, indicted for 
the crime of murder, the highest offence known to the laws of 
the land. The crime is charged to have been committed not in 
your own county, but in the city of Louisville, and there the 
indictment was found. The defendants, during the past winter, 
applied to the Legislature for a change of venue, and elected 
your county as the place at which they would prefer to have the 
question of their innocence or guilt investigated. 

This course, at first blush, may be calculated to raise in your 
minds some unfavorable impressions. You may naturally inquire 
why it was taken ; why they did not await their trial in the 
county in wJiich the offence was charged to have been.com- 



THE WILKINSON TRIAL. "JS 

mitted ; in fine, why they came here ? I feel it my duty, before 
entering into the merits of this case, to answer these questions, 
and to obviate such impressions as I have alluded to, which, 
without explanation, might very naturally exist. 

In doing so, it will be necessary to advert briefly to the history 
of the case. 

My clients have come before you for justice. They have fled 
to you, even as to the horns of the altar, for protection. 

It is not unknown to you, that upon the occurrence of the 
events, the character of which you are about to try, great tumult 
and excitement prevailed in the city of Louisville. Passion and 
prejudice poured poison into the public ear. Popular feeling was 
roused into madness. It was with the utmost difficulty that the 
strong arm of the constituted authorities wrenched the victims 
from the hands of an infuriated mob. Even the thick walls of 
the prison hardly afibrded protection to the accused. Crouched 
and shivering upon the cold floor of their gloomy dungeon, they 
listened to the footsteps of the gathering crowds ; and ever and 
anon, the winter wind, that played melancholy music through 
the rusty grates, was drowned by the fierce howling of the 
human wolves, who prowled and bayed around their place of 
refuge, thirsting for blood. 

Every breeze that swept over the city bore away slander and 
falsehood upon its wings. Even the public press, though I doubt 
not unwittingly, joined in the work of injustice. The misrepre- 
sentations of the prosecutor and his friends became the publio 
history of the transaction ; and from one end of the Union to 
the other, these defendants were held up to public gaze and 
public execration as foul, unmanly murderers, and that, too, 
before any judicial investigation whatever had occurred, or any 
opportunity been afforded them for saying a single word in their 
own defence. 

I recollect well, when I received the first information of the 
affair. It was in some respectable newspaper, which professed 
to give a full account of the transaction, and set forth with hor- 
rible minuteness a column of disgusting particulars. 
Instantly, openly, and unhesitatingly, I pronounced the para- 

VOL. II. 4 



14 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS 

graph false, and trampled it under ray heels : when rumor seemed 
to endorse and sustain the assertions of the public prints, I 
laughed her to scorn. I had known Judge Wilkinson long and 
well. I knew him to be incapable of the acts attributed to him, 
or of the crime with which he was charged, Not an instant did 
I falter or waver in my belief. I hurled back the charge as 
readily as if it had been made against myself. What! a man 
whom I had known for years as the very soul of honor and 
integrity, to be guilty, suddenly and without provocation, of a 
ba<e and cowardly assassination ! One whose whole course of 
life had been governed and shaped by the highest moral principle ; 
whose feelings were familiar to me; whose breast ever had a 
window in it for my inspection, and yet had never exhibited a 
cowardly thought or a dishonorable sentiment ; that such a one, 
and at such an era in his life too, should leap at a single 
bound the wide gulf which separates vice from virtue, and 
plunge at once into the depths of crime and infamy ! Why, it 
was too monstrous, for credence. It was too gross for credulity 
itself. Had I believed it, I should have lost all confidence in ray 
kind. I would no longer have trusted myself in society where 
60 slender a barrier divided good from evil. I should have 
become a man-hater, and Timon-like, gone forth into the desert, 
that I might rail with freedom against my race. You may judge 
of my gratification in finding the real state of facts in the case so 
responsive to my own opinion. 

I am told, gentlemen, that during this popular excitement, 
there were some, whose standing and character might have 
authorized the expectation of a different course of conduct, who 
seemed to think it not amiss to exert their talents and influence 
in aggravating instead of assuaging the violent passions of the 
multitude. I am told that when the examination took place 
before the magistrates, every bad passion, every ungenerous 
prejudice was appealed to. The argument was addressed not to 
the court, but to the populace. 

It was said that the unfortunate individuals who fell in the 
affray were mechanics ; while the defendants were Mississip2^ians^ 
aristocratic slaveTiolders^ who looked upon a poor m&n as no 



THE WILKINSON TRIAL. *7S 

better than a negro. They were called gentlemen^ in derision and 
contempt. Every instance of violence which has occurred in 
Mississippi for years past was brought up and arrayed with 
malignant pleasure, and these defendants made answerable for 
all the crimes which, however much to be regretted, are s4 
common in a new and rapidly populating country. It was this 
course of conduct and this state of feeling which induced the 
change of venue. I have made these remarks, because I fear 
that a similar spirit still actuates that portion of this prosecution, 
which is conducted, not by the State, but by private individuals. 

I am not aware that the Commonwealth of Kentucky is inca- 
pable of vindicating her violated laws or unwilling to prosecute 
and punish the perpetrators of crime. The district attorney has 
given ample proof that she is provided with officers fully capable 
of asserting her rights and protecting her citizens ; and with the 
exception of one or two remarks, which fell from him inadver- 
tently, I accord to his observations my most unqualified appro- 
bation : he has done equal justice to the State and the defendants ; 
he has acquitted himself ably, honorably, and impartially. But, 
gentlemen, though the State is satisfied, the prosecutor is not. 
Your laws have spoken through their constituted agent; now 
private vengeance and vindictive malice will claim to be heard. 
One of the ablest lawyers of your country, or of any country, 
has been employed to conduct t\\Q private part of this prosecu- 
tion ; employed, not by the Commonwealth, but by the real 
murderer ; him whose forehead I intend, before I am done, to 
brand with the mark of Cain — that in after life all may know 
and all may shun him. The money of the prosecutor has 
purchased the talent of the advocate; and tlic contract is, that 
Mood shall be exchanged for gold. The learned and distinguished 
gentleman to whom I allude, and who sits before me, may well 
excite the apprehension of the most innocent. If rumor speak 
truth, he has character sufficient, even thougli without ability, 
and ability sufficient, even without character, to crush the vic- 
tims of his purcliased wrath. 

I said that, with the exception of one or two remarks, I was 
pleased with the manly and honorable course of the Common- 



T6 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

wealth's attorney. Those remarks seemed to be more in the 
spirit of his colleague than in accordance with his own feelings. 

I was sorry to hear him mention so pointedly, and dwell so 
long upon the fact, that the defendants were Mississipjnans^ as 
if that constituted an ingredient in their crime or furnished a 
proof of their guilt. If to be a Mississippian is an offence in my 
clients, I cannot defend them ; I am myself jparticeps criminis. 
We are all guilty ; with malice aforethought, we have left our 
own beautiful homes, and sought that land, the name of 
which seems to arouse in the minds of the opposing counsel 
only images of horror. Truly the learned gentlemen are 
mistaken in us ; we are no cannibals, nor savages. I would that 
they would visit us, and disabuse their minds of these unkind 
prejudices. They would find in that far country thousands of 
their own Kentuckians, who have cast their lot by the monarch 
stream, in the enjoyment of whose rich gifts, though they forget 
not, they hardly regret the bright river upon whose banks they 
strayed in childhood. No State has contributed more of her 
sons to Mississippi than Kentucky; nor do they suffer by being 
transplanted to that genial soil. . Their native State may well be 
proud of them, as they ever are of her. 

But I do injustice to you and to myself by dwelling upon this 
matter. Here in the heart of Kentucky my clients have sought 
and obtained an unprejudiced, impartial jury. You hold in your 
hands the balance of justice ; and I ask and expect that you will 
not permit the prosecution to cast extraneous and improper 
weights into the scale, against the lives of the defendants. You 
constitute the mirror, whose oflBce it is to reflect, in your verdict, 
the law and the evidence which have been submitted to you. 
Let no foul breath dim its pure surface, and cause it to render 
back a broken and distorted image. Through you now flows 
the stream of public justice; let it not become turbid by the 
trampling of unholy feet. Let not the learned counsel, who con- 
ducts the private part of this prosecution, act the necromancer 
with you, as he did with the populace in the city of Louisville 
when he raised a tempest which even his own wizard hand could 
not have controlled. 



THE WILKINSON TRIAL. *l*l 

"Well may he exclaim, in reference to that act, like the foiil 
spirit in Manfred : 

I am the rider of the wind, 

The stirrer of the storm ; 
The hmricane I left behind 

Is yet with lightning warm. 

Aye, so it is still "with lightning warm." But you, gentle- 
men, will perform the humane office of a conductor, and convey 
this electric fluid safely to the earth. 

You will excuse these prefatory observations : they are 
instigated by no doubt of you, but by a sense of duty to the 
defendants. I wisli to obviate, in advance, the attempts which I 
know will be made to excite against them improper and unge- 
nerous prejudices. You have seen, in the examination of one of 
the witnesses, Mr. Graham, this very day, a specimen of the 
kind of feeling which has existed elsewhere, and which I so 
earnestly deprecate. So enraged was he, because the defendants 
had obtained an impartial jury, that he wished the whole Legis- 
lature in that place not to be mentioned to ears polite, and that 
he might be the fireman ; and all on account of the passage of 
the law changing the venue. JSTow, though I doubt much whe- 
ther this worthy gentleman will be gratified in his benevolent 
wishes, in relation to the final destiny of the Senate and House 
of Representatives of this good Commonwealth, yet I cannot 
but believe that his desires in regard to himself will be accom- 
plished, and his ambitious aspirations fully realized in the 
ultimate enjoyment of that singular office which he so warmly 
covets. 

Gentlemen of the Jury — I ask for these defendants no sympa- 
thy ; nor do they wish it. I ask for them only justice — such 
justice alone as you would demand if you occupied their situation 
and they yours. They scorn to solicit that from your pity which 
they challenge from your sense of right. I should ill perform 
towards them the double duty which I have assumed, both of 
friend and advocate, did I treat their participation in this 
unfortunate transaction otherwise than candidly and frankly; 
did I attempt to avoid responsibility by exciting commise- 



18 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

ration. I know that sooner than permit deception and 
conceahiient in relation to their conduct, tiiey would bare 
their necks to the loathsome fingers of the hangman ; fur to 
them the infamous cord has less of terror than falsehood and 
self-degradation. 

That these defendants took away the lives of the two 
individuals whose deaths are charged in the indictment, they do 
nor deny. But they assert that they did not so voluntarily or 
maliciou-ly ; that they committed the act fi-om stern and 
imperative necessity ; from the promptings of the common 
instincts of nature ; by vii-tue of the broad and universal law 
of self-defence ; and they deny that they have violated thereby 
the ordinances either of God or man. They admit the act and 
justify it. 

The ground of their defence is simple, and I will state it, so 
that it cannot be misapprehended. They assert, and I shall 
attempt, from the evidence submitted, to convince you, that a 
conspiracy was formed by the prosecutor, and various other 
persons, among whom were the deceased, to inflict personal 
violence upon them ; that the conspirators, by preconcerted 
agreement, assembled at the G-ait House, in the city of 
Louisville, and attempted to accomplish their object ; and that, 
in the necessary, proper, and legal defence of their lives and 
persons from such attempt, the defendants caused the deaths 
of two of the conspirators. After discussing this proposition, I 
shall submit another, which is, that even though a conspiracy 
on the part of the deceased and their companions, to inflict 
personal violence and bodily injury upon the defendants, did not 
exist, yet the defendants had reasonable ground to suppose the 
existence of such a conspiracy, and to apprehend great bodily 
harm therefrom ; and that upon such reasonable apprehension 
they were justified in thsir action, upon the principle of self- 
defence, equa.ly as if such conspiracy had, in point of fact, 
existed. 

The law applicable to these two propositions is simple, being 
in fact nothing more than a transcript from the law of nature. 
The principles governing and regulating the right of self-defence 



THE WILKINSON TRIAL. 19 

are substantially the same in the jurisprnclence of all countries— 
at least, all civilized ones. These principles have been read to 
you from the books, by my learned and excellent friend, 
Col. Robertson, and require no repetition. 

That a man has a right to defend himself from great bodily 
harm, and to resist a conspiracy to inflict upon him personal 
violence, if there is reasonable danger, even to the death of the 
assailant, will not, I presume, be disputed. That reasonable^ 
well-grounded apprehension, arising from the actions of others, 
of immediate violence and injury, is a good and legal excuse for 
defensive action, proportionate to the apparent impending 
violence, and sufficient to prevent it, I take to be equally indis- 
putable. 

By these plain rules, and upon these simple principles, let us 
proceed to test the guilt or innocence of the defendants. 

First, then, as to the existence of the conspiracy. Before 
examining the direct evidence to this point, you will naturally 
inquire, was there any cause for this alleged conspiracy ? 
Motive always precedes action. Was there any motive for it? 
If we establish the existence of the seed, we shall feel less hesi- 
tation in being convinced of the production of the plant. Was 
there, then, any motive on the part of Mr. Redding and his 
friends for forming a combination to inflict personal violence 
upon the defendants? In answering this question, it will be 
necessary to take notice of the evidence which has been given in 
relation to events that transpired at the shop of Mr. Redding at 
a period anterior to the transaction at the Gait House, and 
which, except for the clue they afford to the motive, and conse- 
quently to the subsequent action of the parties, would have no 
beai'ing upon the case before you. You will take heed to remem- 
ber, that whatever of impropriety you may consider as attaching 
to the conduct of Judge Wilkinson and his friends during this 
part of the affiiir, must not be permitted to weigh in your 
verdict, inasmuch as that conduct is the subject of another 
indictment which is still pending in this court. 

Judge Wilkinson visited Louisville for the purpose of making 
the preparations necessary for the celebration of his nuptials. 



80 MEMOIK OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

The other two defendants had also their preparations to make, 
inasmuch as they were to act as the friends upon this interesting 
occasion. Dr. Wilkinson, a brother of the Judge, had ordered a 
suit of clothes of Mr. Eedding, who follows the very respectable 
occupation of tailor, occasionally relieved and interspersed by the 
more agreeable pursuits of a coffee-house keeper. On the day 
but one preceding that fixed for the marriage ceremonies, the 
Doctor, in company with his brother and friend, Murdaugh, 
proceeded to the shop of Mr. Eedding for the purpose of obtain- 
ing the wedding garments. Upon trying on the coat, it was 
found ill made and of a most ungraceful fit. It hung loosely 
about his shoulders, and excited by its awkward construction 
the criticism and animadversion of his friends. Even the artificer 
did not presume to defend the work of his own hand-s ; but 
simply contended that he could re-organize the garment, and 
compel it, by his amending skill, into fair and just proportions. 
From the evidence, I presume, no one will doubt that it was a 
shocking bad coat. Now, though under ordinary circumstances 
the aptitude of a garment is not a matter of very vital import- 
ance in the economy of life, and ought not to become the 
subject of controversy, yet all will admit that there are occasion? 
upon which a gentleman miiy pardonably indulge a somewhat 
fastidious taste in relation to this matter. Doctor Wilkinson 
will certainly be excused, considering the attitude in which h^ 
stood, for desiring a well-made and fashionable coat. 

I confess I am not a very good judge in concerns of this sort, 
I have had no experience on the subject, and my investigations 
in relation to it have been exceedingly limited. Under favor, 
however, and with due deference to the better judgment of ttm 
learned counsel on the other side, I give it as my decided 
opinion, that a gentleman who is about to participate in a mar- 
riage ceremony is justified in refusing to wear a coat, which, by 
its loose construction and superabundant material, indicates, as 
in the case before us, a manifest want of good husbandry. 

Suflace it to say. Doctor Wilkinson and his friends did object 
to the garment, and Mr. Redding, after some altercation, con- 
sented to retain it. The pantaloons, which constituted a part 



THE WILKINSON TRIAL. 81 

of the suit, had been sent to the Hotel, and the Doctor was ih 
the act of paying for them out of a $100 bill, which he haa 
previously deposited with Mr. R., when the Judge remarked that 
he had better not pay for the pantaloons until he had first tried 
them on, as they might be found to fit no better than the coat. 
Mr. Redding, according to his own evidence, responded, that 
" they had said too much already about the matter ;" to which 
the Judge, he says, replied, that he did not come there to be 
insulted, and immediately seized the poker and struck him; 
upon which the Doctor and Mr. Murdaugh also fell on him, with 
their knives drawn. Redding then seized his shears, but did 
not succeed in cabbaging therewith any part of his assailants. 
He was successful, however, in dragging the Judge into the 
street, where, after a slight scuflae, which resulted in no personal 
injury to any of the parties, they were separated. After the 
separation, Redding offered, if they would lay down their knives, 
to fight them all. This kind proposition the defendants declined ; 
but the Doctor returned into the shop, obtained his $100 note, 
and then the defendants retired from the place. 

Such, in substance, is Mr. Redding's own account of the trans- 
action at his shop. The witness Weaver also proves the alterca- 
tion which occurred in relation to the fit of the coat and the 
scuflQe which ensued in consequence. He, however, avers that 
Redding, in a very insulting manner, told the Judge that he *' was 
more meddlesome than the other," and that he " was too d — d 
meddlesome," or words to that effect ; which insulting language 
so excited the Judge that he seized the poker and commenced 
the assault. 

The other witness, Craig, Redding's journeyman, testifies in 
substance the same as Redding, as to what passed in the shop ; 
corroborates his account of the altercation about the coat ; and 
says that he considered Doctor Wilkinson, not as assisting in the 
affi-ay, but as attempting to separate the parties. Some of the 
witnesses think that the Doctor attempted, in the street, to stab 
Redding, as he was getting the advantage of his brother. The 
evidence on this point, as weU as in regard to the conduct of 
Murdaugh, is somewhat contradictory. In the view, however, 

VOL. II. 4* 



82 MEMOIR OF S. vS. PRENTISS. 

whicli I have taken of the case, the discrepancy is of little 
importance. 

It is clearly proven, take the evidence in any way, that Mr. 
Eedding used insulting language towards Judge Wilkinson, on 
account of the Judge's expression of an opinion in relation to 
the fit of his brother's coat. What was the exact language 
used, it is difficult to ascertain. 

There were six persons in the room when the quarrel ensued 
— on the one side, the prosecutor (Redding), his foreman (Craig), 
and the boy (Weaver) ; on the other, the three defendants. 

All the evidence on this point has been derived from the first 
party, and ought, consequently, to be taken with many grains 
of allowance. The prosecutor has given you his version of the 
aflfair, but his cunning has prevented the defendants from giving 
you theirs. Doctor Wilkinson, who was discharged by the 
examining magistrate, has been included in the indictment, one 
would judge, for the very purpose of precluding his testimony. 
"No one can doubt that the conduct of Judge Wilkinson, how- 
ever reprehensible, resulted from the abusive language and 
insulting demeanor of Mr. Redding. The happy facility with 
which he indulged, on a subsequent occasion, in the use of 
opprobrious epithets, gives good reason to suppose that his 
remarks on the present were not very guarded. The expression 
deposed to by Weaver is, I presume, but a sample. " You are 
too d — d meddlesome," was the observation, accompanied, no 
doubt, by the overbearing and bullying manner which illustrated 
his conduct afterwards, and which smacked more of his spiritual 
pursuit, as the Ganymede of a cofiee-house, than of his gentle 
calling as a knight of the shears and thimble. He certainly did 
on this occasion " sink the tailor ;" for tailors are proverbially 
polite and gentlemanly in their deportment. 

I do not wish to be considered as justifying Judge Wilkinson 
or his friends, ii\ taking notice of the petulant and insolent 
conduct of Redding. I think they would have better consulted 
their character and feelings, by treating him with contempt. I 
will go further, and candidly admit that I consider their course 
reprehensible although it resulted from passion and sudden ex- 



THE WILKINSON TRIAL. 83 

citemeut, and not from deliberate determination. They were 
themselves convinced of this in a moment, and left the ground, 
ashamed, as they still are, of their participation in the matter — 
Judge Wilkinson rebuking and leading away his young and more 
ardent friend, Murdaugh, who seemed to indicate some disposition 
to accept the boastful challenge of Mr. Redding, " that he could, 
if they would lay down their knives, whip them all three." 
From all tlie evidence, it is perfectly clear that, in the alterca- 
tion, no personal injury resulted to any of the parties ; that the 
defendants retired voluntarily from the quarrel; while Mr. 
Eedding retained the field, and with boastful taunts and insulting 
outcries, invited a renewal of the fight. The Mississippi ans were 
manifestly satisfied. Not so Mr. Redding : he was " full of 
wrath and cabbage," boiling over with violence, and breathing 
defiance and vengeance against the retreating foe. He, doubt- 
less, retired to his coffee-house, and attempted to soothe his 
wounded feelings with some of the delightful beverages which it 
was occasionally his profitable province to dispense to others. 
Here his friends gathered around him ; he recounted to them his 
manifold grievances; he grew warm in the recital; the two 
white-handled pocket-knives, which had been drawn but not 
used in the affray, danced before his distempered imagination in 
the shape of trenchant and death-dealing blades. These little 
instruments, of ordinary and general use, became, at once, bowie 
knives, " in buckram." He believed, no doubt, and made his 
friends believe, that he was an injured man, and that some satis- 
faction was due to his insulted honor. I have presented this 
part of the case to you, simply for the purpose of enabling you 
to judge of the subsequent action of the parties, and to indicate 
on which side a desire for vengeance, and a combination to 
obtain it, were most likely to originate. Upon the conclusion 
of the first affray, which party would yoa have suspected of a 
disposition to renew it ? "Where could lie the motive on the part 
of Judge Wilkinson and his friends for additional violence ? But 
who that is acquainted with the workings of human nature, or 
the indications of human feeling, will hesitate a moment in 
believing that revenge lurked in the bosom of Redding, and 



84 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

sought only a safe opportunity for development ? His conduct 
indicated a state of mind precisely fitted for the formation of a 
conspiracy. 

Having laid the foundation, T will now proceed to the erection 
of the superstructure. I will show, first by the direct, and then 
by the circumstantial proofs, the existence of this foul and 
cowardly conspiracy. I will, however, here remark, that I 
doubt not the misrepresentations and falsehoods of Mr. Redding, 
in relation to the transaction, induced several of the persons 
implicated to join the combination, who, with a correct know- 
ledge of the facts, would never have participated in the afiair. 

First, then, as to the direct and positive evidence. Mr. Jack- 
son says, that immediately after the first affray he was passing 
Mr. Bedding's, when his attention was attracted by loud 
talking in the store, which induced him to enter, where he 
found Redding, Johnson, and Meeks. Johnson was expressing 
his opinion as to tlie course which should be pursued towards 
the Mississippians for their conduct, and said they " ought to go 
to the Gait House and flog them." ^'Jack," said he to Mr. 
Redding, "just say the word, and Til go for Bill Holmes, and 
we'll give them h — 1 ;" at the same time boasting, in his own 
peculiar phraseology, " that he was as much manhood as was 
ever wrapped up in so much hide." Upon some hesitation being 
evinced at th^s proposition, Meeks said, " Let's go anyhow, and 
we'll have a spree." 

Mr. Jackson further deposes, that some time after he was 
stopped by Johnson, on the street, who told him he was going 
after Holmes ; that Jack Redding was a good man, and that he, 
Jackson, ought to go with them to the Gait House, atid see him 
righted. Jackson declined, alleging as an excuse his religious 
character, and his desire to abstain from fighting ; whereupon 
Johnson exclaimed, in his ardent zeal for enlisting recruits, that 
" church, hell, or heaven ought to be laid aside to right a friend." 
Jackson says, he understood it distinctly that it was a fight to 
which he was invited. 

Mr. Jackson's testimony is entitled to credit. He did not 
participate in the affair; and he can have no inducement to 



THE WILKINSON TRIAL. 85 

speak falsely, for all his prejudices must naturally be enlisted on 
the side of the prosecution. His character is sustained by unex- 
ceptionable testimony, and has been impugned by no on^ except 
the Salamander gentleman, whose ambition seems to be, to 
pursue in the next world that occupation which in this is princi- 
pally monopolized by the descendants'of Ham. 

The next direct evidence of the conspiracy is from Mr. Deering, 
whose character and testimony are both unimpeachable. He 
says, he was passing down Market street, on the evening of the 
affray, when he saw, near the' Market-house, Johnson, in com- 
pany with Holmes and others, and that they were discussing 
the subject of the quarrel between the Mississippians and Red- 
ding. This proves that Johnson was carrying into effect his 
proposition at Bedding's store, viz. : "to go and get Bill Holmes, 
and give them h— 1." He had already found Bill Holmes, and, 
we shall presently see, made all his arrangements for " giving 
them h— 1." 

Mr. Deering says, that soon after lie met Mr. Johnson again, 
who inquired for Mr. Turner, the City Marshal. Mr. Deering 
told him he would be too late with his officers, for the Missis- 
sippians would be gone; to which Mr. Johnson responded, 
'Hhere icere enough gone there— that if they came down their 
hides would not hold shucks.''^ What did this mean, if it did not 
indicate that the conspiracy had already been formed, and a 
portion of the conspirators assembled at the Gait House, for the 
purpose of preventing the game from escaping, and holding it at 
bay, until the arrival of the rest of the hunters. They had gone, 
it seems, too, in sufficient numbers to authorize the classical 
boast of Mr. Johnson, " that if they (meaning the Mississippians) 
came down their hides wouldn't hold shucks." 

There is one more witness, whose testimony is positive to the 
point. It is Mr. Harris." He swears, clearly and unequivocally, 
that Johnson met him on the evening of the affray, told him that 
the Mississippians had insulted Mr. Redding, and directly soli- 
cited him to go with Redding's friends to the G.ilt House and 
see him righted. Mr. Harris says he refused to go, whereupon 
Johnson exclaimed, " Are you a friend of Redding's ?" thereby 
showing how strong was the feeling when even a mere refusal 



86 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

to participate in the violence, was considered as proof that the 
man refusing was no friend of Redding. 

Such, gentlemen, is the positive proof of the conspiracy. It 
consists of the evidence of three disinterested and honest wit- 
nesses, two of whom were directly and strongly solicited to 
particifate in the matter. The testimony of each of these 
witnesses corroborates that of the other two. . The facts sworn 
to have a natural order and connection. There is a verisimili- 
tude about the whole story, which would not belong to either 
portion by itself. The testimony is entitled to much more 
weight than if it had been the recital of a single witness ; for 
if you believe one of the witnesses, you must give credit to all. 
One of them swears that he heard Johnson, in Bedding's shop, 
propose to Redding and his friends that he should get "Bill 
Holmes" and "give them h — 1." The next witness saw Johnson 
in the street immediately after, in company with " Bill Holmes," 
who seems to have been the Achilles of these Myrmidons ; 
explaining to him how his dear Patroclus, Redding, had been 
insulted by the hectoring Mississippians, and urging him to 
vengeance. Again the same witness met Johnson, and was 
informed by him that a portion of his banditti had already taken 
possession of the passes of the Gait House, and that if the 
Mississippians appeared, " their hides wouldn't hold shucks.'* 
The third witness swears to a positive solicitation from Johnson, 
that he should join in the foray, and to the expression of strong 
indignation by this slayer of cattle upon his refusal to do so. 

Johnson was the "Mahse" of the party, "tlie messenger 
of blood and brand " sent forth to summon the clansmen true. 
Too well did he perform his duty. He collected his friends, and 
conducted them like beasts to the slaughter ; while he himself 
found the " manhood," which, according to his boast, distended 
his hide, rapidly descending to his heels. But enough, for the 
present, of this vaporing worthy ; I shall pay my respects to him 
hereafter. 

I will now proceed, in pursuance of the plan I had prescribed, 
to show the existence of the conspiracy, by the circumstantial 
evidence, which is, if possible, more irrefragable than the direct 



THE WILKINSON TRIAL. 81 

testimony ; but yet most beautifully illustrates and confirms it. 
I will exhibit to you a chain of facts, linked together by a natu- 
ral and necessary connection, which I defy even the strong arm 
of the opposing counsel to break. I will weave a cable, upon 
whose unyielding strength the defence may safely rely to ride 
out the storm of this furious prosecution. 

Mr. Eedding went to the Gait House after the affair at his 
shop, for the purpose, as he avows, of obtaining the names of 
the Mississippians, that he might procure process against them 
from the civil authorities. On his way, as he confesses, he 
armed himself with a deadly weapon, which, however, I am 
bound in justice to say, he never had the courage to use. A 
number of individuals accompanied and followed him whose 
manner and strange appearance excited universal attention, even 
in the bar-room of the most frequented hotel in the "Western 
country. Their strange faces and strange action excited general 
apprehension. Nearly every witness to the unfortunate catas- 
trophe, has deposed that he was struck with the " strange faces " 
congregated in the bar-room. The learned counsel on the other 
side, has attempted to prove in the examination, and will, no 
doubt, insist in the argument, that that room is daily crowded 
with strangers from every part of the country ; that the excel- 
lence of the fare, and the urbanity of its proprietors, invite to the 
Gait House a large portion of the travelling public ; and that, 
consequently, it is nowise remarkable that strange faces should 
be observed in the bar-room. Though I admit the gentleman's 
premises, I deny his conclusion. That strangers should frequent 
the Gait House is not wonderful ; they do it every day ; and for 
that very reason, strange faces, under ordinary circumstances, 
arouse neither remark nor attention. That the " strange faces " 
of Mr. Reddiug's friends should have excited remark and 
scrutiny, not only from the inmates of the House, but from 
strangers themselves, is truly wonderful, and can be accounted 
for only by admitting that there was something very peculiar in 
their conduct and appearance. 

They went there prepared for preconcerted action. Having 
a common object, and a well arranged plan, a glance, or a mo- 



88 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

tioD, sufficed to convey intelligence from one to the other. Tell- 
tale consciences spoke from each countenance. Their looks, 
unlike the mystic sign of the mysterious brotherhood, gave up 
to the observer the very secret they wished thereby to conceal. 
There is a strange and subtle influence, a kind of mental sense, 
by which we acquire intimation of men's intentions, even 
before they have ripened into word or action. It seems, on 
such occasions, as if information was conveyed to the mind, 
by a sort of natural anknal-magnetism, without the intervention 
of the senses. 

Thus, in this case, all the bystanders were impressed at once, 
with the conviction that violence was intended by the strange 
men who had attracted their attention. These men, it is pro- 
ven, were the friends and intimate companions of Kedding. 
Most of them, though living in the city of Louisville, were not 
in the habit of going to the Gait House, and yet, by singular 
coincidence, had all assembled there on this occasion. 

They were remarkably stout men, constituting the very elite 
of the thews and muscle of Louisville, and many of them noted 
for their prowess in the vulgar broils of the city. Why had 
they thus congregated on this occasion? — "Why their strange 
and suspicious demeanor ? I will show you why. It will not 
be necessary to await the actual fight to become fully conversant 
with their purpose. It found vent in various shapes, but chiefly 
bubbled out in the unguarded remarks, and almost involuntary 
expressions of the more garrulous of the party. 

I shall be compelled, even at the risk of being tedious, to 
glance at the evidence of a number of the witnesses in showing 
you the circumstances at the G-alt House, which conclusively 
indicate the existence of the conspiracy. 

Mr. Everett, one of the proprietors of the Gait House, says he 
was admonished by his bar-keeper that a difficulty was about to 
arise, and he had better persuade Judge Wilkinson out of the 
bar-room. Accordingly, he went in and took the Judge away, 
and gives as a reason that he was alarmed at the strange faces in 
the bar-room, and apprehended difficulty ; alarmed, not because 
the faces were those of strangers, but because of something in 



THE WILKINSON TRIAL. 89 

their appearance which indicated concert and threatened \io- 
lence. 

Mr. Trabue was waiting in the room for supper, and says he 
heard some one remark, " if the Mississippians had not gone up 
stairs, they would have been badly treated ;" in connection with 
which remark. Redding was pointed out to him. This, it seems, 
was after the Judge had retired at the solicitation of Mr. Eve- 
rett. Now, who were to have treated the Mississippians badly, 
except Mr. Redding and his friends ? Who else had any pre- 
tence for so doing? Can you doubt for a moment that the 
remark had reference to Mr. Redding's party ? It was probably 
made by one of them ; but whether by one of them or a stran- 
ger, it equally indicated their violent determinations. Mr. Trabue 
also proves that after Judge Wilkinson retired, Mr. Redding also 
retired ; and when the Judge returned into the bar-room. Red- 
ding presently entered; followed, to use the language of Mr. 
Trabue ''by a right smart crowd" of his friends. Now why 
did Redding thus go out, and return with his gang at his heels ? 
Why were his movements thus regulated by the motions of the 
Judge? — Wherefore was it, that every one expected a difficulty? 

Mr. Redding, according to his own story, went to the Gait 
House simply for tlie purpose of obtaining the names of the gen- 
tlemen who had insulted him. 

He had accomplished his ostensible object. He had obtained 
the names, and more than that, he had gratified his base appe- 
tite, by abusing one of the gentlemen in the most indecent 
and disgusting manner. No rowdy who ever visited his coffee- 
house, could have excelled him in this, to the vulgar mind, sweet 
mode of vengeance. He had even driven the Judge from the 
room by the overwhelming torrent of his billingsgate epithets. 
To use an expression suited to his comprehension and feelings, . 
he remained "cock of the walk." Yet he was not satisfied. 
He retired, and watched the return of the Judge, and then, em- 
boldened by his previous impunity, followed with his cut-throat 
band to complete the work of vengeance. 

But to proceed with the circumstantial evidence. Mr. Mont- 
gomery states that he was with Mr. Trabue at the Gait House, 



90 



MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 



when Kedding came in after the names, and also when he 
came back just before the conflict; heard him use very rough 
language, and also, heard Halbert remark that there would be 
" rough work with the Mississippians." Now this fully corrobo- 
rates the testimony of Mr. Trabue on the same point, who heard 
the remark, but did not recollect who made it. This Marshall 
Halbert is the man who boasted, after the affair was over, that 
he had knocked down one of the Mississippians with a chair, 
while his back was towards him, and recounted many other 
feats of daring to the astonishment of tlie listeners. 

I should judge him to be of the blood of lionest Jack Fal- 
staff, whose killing, as everybody knows, was always by word 
of mouth, and whose deeds of desperate valor were so unfortu- 
nate as to find neither historian nor believer, except himself. 
At all events Halbert, according to his own confession, was one 
of the conspirators, and I have no doubt performed his part in 
the affray as well as he knew how, and with much greater hu- 
manity than he pretends. In addition to the above remark ot 
Halbert's, Mr. Montgomery states that he heard several persons 
say, at a time when the defendants were not in the room, that 
they would beat the Mississippians well. 

General Chambers, who lives opposite the Gait House, and is 
in the daily habit of visiting it, says he went into the bar-room 
just before the affray, that he observed persons whom he was 
not in the habit of seeing there, and that from their appearance 
and demeanor, his suspicions were immediately aroused. 

1 attach great weight to the testimony of General Chambers. 
His character for intelligence and observation needs no com- 
ment from me, and the fact that his suspicions were aroused, 
must convince every one that cause for alarm existed. 

The next testimony to which I shall refer, is that of Mr. Oli- 
ver. He says that he was acquainted with Mr. Meeks, and was 
taking a social glass with him on the evening of the affray 
when Meeks started off, saying he must go to the Gait House, 
(which was on the opposite side of the street), that he was 
bound to have a fight that night, and " by G— d he would have 
one." You will recollect, that Meeks was one of the persons 



THE WILKINSON TRIAL. 91 

who collected around Redding, immediately after the affair at 
the shop, and seconded Jo!inson's proposition to get Bill Holmes 
and "give them h — 1," by saying '' they would go anyhow, and 
have a spree." Can you doubt, for a moment, that the observa- 
tion made by this unfortunate man to Mr Oliver, as just recited, 
had relation to the previous arrangement with Johnson and 
others, at Bedding's shop ? The remark of Meeks seems to me, 
taken in counecticm with his previous and subsequent conduct, 
almost conclusive of itself as to the existence of a conspiracy. I 
had almost forgotten to observe Mr. Oliver's statement that 
Meeks, before he started, tied a knot in the small end of a cow- 
hide which he carried, manifestly to prevent it from slipping 
out of his hand in the conflict which he so eagerly courted. His 
knife, by a sort of pious fraud, had been taken from him by Mr. 
Oliver, otherwise the result might have been very different. The 
prudent caution of Mr. Oliver in disarming him of his weapon, 
proves how strong must have been the indications of his violent 
disposition. 

Mr. Eeaugh says he was at the Gait House on the evening of 
the affray, and saw Redding in conversation with Rothwell and 
Halbert — he also saw Holmes and Johnson. Something in the 
demeanor of the party, induced him to ask Johnson what was 
the matter. Johnson replied by relating the affair of the shop. 
Upon which Reaugh observed " if the Mississippians fall into the 
hands of these men, they will fare rather rough." " Yes," 
replied the worthy butcher, "they would skin them quicker 
than I could skin a sheep." Mr. Reaugh states that he made 
the remark to Johnson, because of the remarkable size and 
strength of the men to whom he alluded, the strange manner 
in which they had assembled, and the fact that he knew them 
to be friends of Redding, and that Redding had been in a quar- 
rel with the Mississippians. 

Mr. Miller states that being a member of the grand jury, and 
having heard of the affray at Bedding's, he went into a tin-shop 
to inquire about the matter, when Mr. Halbert came in and 
boasted much of what he intended to do. Witness then went 
to the Gait House for supper, when he heard Redding abus- 



92 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

ing Judge Wilkinson, and rballenging him for a figlit. Wit* 
ness advised Ilalbert to take Redding away, observing that he, 
witness, was on the grand jury, had the names, and would have 
all the matter attended to. Some one, he thinks Johnson, then 
remarked that "if he didn't leave the room, he'd see the finest 
sort of beef-steaks served up." ' Presently he heard the excla- 
mation, near the counter, "there they are, all three of them!" 
and the crowd immediately closed in upcm the persons so indi- 
cated. 

Mr. Waggry, also, heard the remark about the " steaks," and 
then heard some one exclaim, " we'll have a h — 1 of a fight here 
just now." He also heard Mr. Miller advise Ilalbert to take 
Redding away. 

Mr. Brown swears that he heard Mr. Miller tell Mr. Redding 
he was not taking the proper course ; he should have the 
matter before the grand jury ; whereupon some one said " hush 
you Billy Miller, if it comes to haudy-cuffs, the boys w^ill settle 
it." The Avituess then became so apprehensive of a fight that 
he left the room. 

IsTow^, though Miller is not positive as to the person who made 
use of the expression about " serving up beof-steaks," yet no 
one, I take it, will hesitate as to his identity. Who but John- 
son could speak in such rich and technical language ? Who but 
Johnson could boast of " having as much manhood as was ever 
wrapped in the same extent of hide?" While, at the same 
time, he had so arranged it, that the " hides " of the Mississip- 
pians "would not hold shucks." Who but this unmitigated 
savage would talk of "skinning" a gentleman " quicker than I 
could skin a sheep?" Why he rubs his hands, licks his lips, and 
talks of serving up Christians in the shape of "steaks," with as 
little compunction as you or I would exliibit in eating a radish. 
The cannibal ! He should go at once to IsTew Zealand and open 
his shambles there. His character would suit that country ; and 
I doubt not he would obtain great custom, and find am})le 
demand for his human "steaks." Why, gentlemen, I should be 
afraid to buy meat out of liis stall. He talks as if he supplied it 
by burking. I should expect some day to swallow an unbaptized 



THE WILKINSON TRIAL. 93 

infant in the disguise of a reeking pig, or to eat a fellow-citizen, 
incog, in a " steak." Such a fellow should be looked to. But 
again. What meant the expression deposed to by Reaugh, 
" there they are, all three of them now "? It was the signal for 
the conspirators to close in. It clearly proves a pre-concerted 
plan ; no names were mentioned, and without a previous under- 
standing, the expression would have been nonsense. Most of 
the party did not know the Mississippians ; hence it was neces- 
sary that some one should give intimation when they entered 
the room. The expression, '' There they are," was the signal 
for the onset. "What meant the expression, sworn to by 
Waggry, " We'll have a hell of a fight here just now "? 

What conclusion do you draw from the response made to 
Miller, when he advised Eedding to bring the matter before the 
grand jury, " Hush you, Billy Miller, and if it comes to handy- 
cuffs the boys will settle it ?" If what comes to handy-cuffs ! 
And who were the boys ? Why, if the quarrel with the Missis- 
sippians comes to handy-cuffs, and as for the " boys," there was 
not a man present who did not know who they were. 

Redding was one of the " boys," and a very bad boy too. 
Billy Holmes was another ; Marshall Halbert was a " perfect 
broth of a bo}^," and if his own story is entitled to credit, he 
must have been twins, for he acted the part of at least two in 
the fight. Bill Johnson w^as as much of a boy as ever was 
" wrapped up in the same amount of hide," though his extraor- 
dinary modesty has induced him to deny the soft impeachment. 
The unfortunate Meeks and Rothwell were two of the " boys ;" 
and last though not least, comes Harry Oldham, the "Jack 
Horner " of the party. He " sat in the corner " till the fight 
was nearly over, when he "put in his thumb " and " pulled out," 
not " a plum," but a pistol ; and ever since, has been exclaiming, 
" What a brave ' boy ' am I." 

Yes, gentleman of the jury, these were the " boys " whose 
strange appearance aroused the suspicions and excited the appre- 
hensions of all. 

Permit me, now, to call your attention to the testimony of 
Mr. Donahue. It is clear and conclusive. He swears that on 



94 MEMOIR OF S. S. PREXTISS. ^• 

the evening of the affray, and j ist before it occurred, being in 
the bar-room of the Gait House, he heard Eothwell ask Redding 
"if they were there?" — upon being answered in the negative, he 
exclaimed, " come let us go up stairs and bring them down, and 
give them h — 1." Eothwell was the brother-in-law of Redding, 
had been informed by Redding of his grievances, and had accom- 
panied him to the Gait House. Whom did he mean, when he 
asked if " they were there ?" The Mississippians undoubtedly. 
"Whom did he propose to drag from their rooms, and chastise * 
Of course the same persons for whom he had just inquired, 
Eothwell asked if " they were there ?" when the defendants came 
in, some one cried out " there they are, all three of them !" 
These two expressions manifestly emanated from persons who 
understood each other, and were engaged in pursuit of a common 
object. 

If these remarks had not relation to some previously concerted 
plan of action, they would be unmeaning and foolish ; but grant- 
ing the existence of the conspiracy I have supposed, and every 
word is pregnant with meaning ; full of force, weight and effect. 

Mr. Rally deposes to the caution given by Miller to Redding ; 
also to the fact that Redding left the room when Judge Wilkin- 
son had retired, and came back again immediately after the 
Judge had returned. He also ^saw Oldham after the affair was 
over, putting a pistol into his pocket, and wiping, with his hand- 
kerchief, the blood from a double-edged dirk. 

Mr. Pearson says he went to the Gait House just before supper, 
on the evening of the affray. As he stood behind the bar, one 
Capt. Rogers observed that there would be a fight. Presently, 
witness met Marshall Halbert, and told him he ought to stop it, 
meaning the fight. Halbert said ^' no, let it go on," This was 
before Redding had commenced abusing Judge Wilkinson, and 
proves that the idea of a fight did not originate from that cir- 
cumstance. The Judge came, and Redding abused him. He 
went out, and Redding followed. He returned, and presently so 
did Redding with a crowd at his heels. Seeing the crowd, and 
apprehending violence, Mr. Pearson was in the act of leading 
the Judge out of the room, when the crowd I'ushed upon Mur* 



THE WILKINSON TRIAL. 95 

daugh ; the affray commenced, and the Judge stopped, refusing 
to leave the room until he saw his friends out of the difficulty. 
Need I ask you whether he was right in so doing ? 

Mr. Banks says he saw Eeddiug just after the first affray, and 
asked him if he was hurt. He said no, but that "he would have 
sati.-faction," and that " he could whip them all three." 

Dr. Graham says that after Judge Wilkinson had left the bar- 
room, the first time, he heard some one observe, " the d d 

coward has run." 

Does not Mr. Oldham's testimony * prove the conspiracy ? I 

*MK. OLDHAM'S TESTIMONY. 

QuesUon. Were you in the bar-room when the fighting was going on ? 

Answer. No ; I was going in through the bar-room door, when I think it was Dr. 
Wilkinson was rushing out, and cut me in the arm, and I knocked him down. Mr. 
Holmes then came to the passage with a raised chair, and struck at the Judge, 
breaking the chair against the door. The Judge ran to the stairs. Mr. Holmes 
struck Mr. Murdaugh at the stairs with the chair. Mr. Murdaugh got up towards 
the head of the stairs, and hallooed for his pistol. That put me in mind of my pis- 
tol, and I took it out and fired it at him. 

Q. Where did you say you were cut? 

A. In the arm, as I attempted to enter the bar-room door. 

Q. Was there any concert for you to go to the Gait House that evening ? 

A. None at all. 

Q. Why did you knock the Doctor down ? 

A. Because he had cut me in the arm. 

Q. Was there any provocation on your part to induce him to cut you ? 

A. No. I knew none of the gentlemen. V.'hy he cut me in the arm I am unable 
to tell. I am confident he never saw me before. 

Cross-Examined.— <2. How long had you been in the Gait House then ? 

A. Three or four minutes— but I had been in the bar-room at first before it be- 
gan. 

Q. Name such of the persons as you saw there then ? 

A. I saw Mr. Holmes, Mr. Rothwell, and Mr. Halbert in the bar-room. When 
they came in they asked me to take some liquor, which I did. A gentleman came 
and asked to see me, and I went away with him ; we staid out some time, talking 
^bout boats which he said he had laying at the mouth of the Kentucky river. W« 
were talking outside, when I could hear chairs rattling, and then on trying to go into 
the bar-room, I got the cut in the arm. 

Cross-Examined.— ^. When were you first in the bar-room that evening? 

A. Before any fuss began at all there. 

Q. Did you not remain to see the fuss ? 

A. I went out at the time of the fuss. 

Q. Were there not many people there, and in the passages ? 

A. There appeareu to be a good many, and some fuss in the passage. 

Q, "What sort of knife was you cut with ? 



96 - MEMOIR OF S. S. PREXTISS. 

do not mean directly, but circumstantially. He says he was not 
present at the fi,i;ht in the bar-room, and knew nothing of the 



A, I was cut with a dirk knife. 

Q. Can you be positive who cut you? 

A. Doctor Wilkinson was the man that cut me, and I knocked him down for it. 

Q. Had you given him by word or gesture, no cause for doing it ? 

A. I had not. 

Q. Did you not go there to have a fight ? 

A. No. I went there accidentally — it was on my way home. I fought on my 
own hook. 

Q. You shot at Murdaugh on your own hook ? 

A. At the head of the stairs, when he hallooed out for his pistol, I took the 
advantage to get out mine, and I fired at him. 

Q. When the Doctor was coming out of the door was he not cut and bruised 
and disabled ? 

A. I could not see by him, whether he was or not. 

Q. Did you tell all this at the Examining Court ? 

A. I stated the same there as here. 

Q. What coloured handle had the knife which the Doctor cut you with ? 

A. I think it was a white handled knife. 

Q. Did you fire before you were stabbed ? 

A. No, I was stabbed first. 

Q. And you had your pistol prepared with two bullets? 

A. No ; there were not two bullets ; but there was one bullet cut in three pieces. 
It had been two or three days loaded. 

Q. Well, you had other weapons? 

A. I had a Bowie knife. 

Q. Was the pistol a rifle barrelled pistol ? 

A. Yes. 

Q. How came you to arm yom's elf thus? 

A. I usually carry a bowie-knife and a pistol about me since I belonged to the 
City Guard last summer. 

Q. Of course you used your bowie-knife with effect that evening? 

A. I did not use it on that occasion. 

Q. You certainly displayed it? 

A. The button on the scabbard came ofif, and it slipped through my pantaloons. 

^. Was there not blood on it ? 

A. There could be no blood on it, but it had a red scabbard, which may have 
been mistaken. 

Q. Did you not wipe blood off with your handkercnief ? 

A. I am confident I did not, for there could be none on it. 

Q. Do you say you made nc exhibition of it ? 

A. A gentleman at Zanone's Coffee-House asked me to show him a bowie-knife, 
and I showed him mine — that is the only exhibition could be talked of. 

Q. Did you hear of the affair at Redding's ? 

.A Not till I went to the Gait House. I did not even hear of it till the Gait- 
House affair commenced. I did not hear of it before I went into the bar-room. — Ed, 



THE WILKINSON TRIAL. 91 

affair, nor of the defendants. . He says he was standing in the 
passage when the door opened, and he received a cut from Dr. 
Wilkinson, whom he knocked down for his pains. 

After fighting in the crowd awhile, he saw Murdangh retreat- 
ing up stairs, and heard him asking for a pistol, whereupon he 
was reminded of his own pistol, which he immediately drew, 
and discharged at the young gentleman, giving him not the 
weapon, hut its contents, to wit : a bullet split in three pieces. 
This Worthy gentleman, who is certainly 

" as mild a mannered man 



As ever scuttled ship, or cut a throat," 

swears positively that he did not know either of the defendants ; 
that he belonged to neither party in the affray ; and that he 
fought, to use his own descriptive and unrivalled phraseology, 
entirely "upon his own hook." 

Surely, Mr, Henry Oldham must be the knight errant of the 
age ; the Don Quixote of the West ; the paragon of modern 
chivalry. 

He fights, not from base desire of vengeance, nor from sordid 
love of gold ; not even from patriotism or friendship ; but from 
a higher and a loftier sentiment ; from his pure, ardent, disin- 
terested, unsophisticated love of glorious strife. Like Job's war- 
horse, he " smelleth the battle afar off," and to the sound of the 
trumpet, he saith, ha ! ha ! To him 

♦'There is something of pride in the perilous hour, 
Whate'er be the shape in which death may lower, 
Ipor fame is there, to tell who bleeds, 
And honor's eye on daring deeds." 

Yon have heard, gentlemen, of the bright, warm isles which 
gem the oriental seas, and are kissed by the fiery sun of the 
tropics ; where the clove, the cinnamon, and the ^utmeg grow ; 
where the torrid atmosphere is oppressed with a delicious, but 
fierce and intoxicating influence. There the spirit of man par- 
takes of the same spicy qualities which distinguish the produc- 
tions of the soil. Even as the rinds of their fruits split open 

VOL. II. 5 



98 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

with nature's rich excess, so do the human passions burst forth 
with an overwhelming violence and prodigality unknown till 
now, in our cold, ungentle clime. Tliere, in the islands of Java, 
Sumatra, the Malaccas, and others of the same latitude, cases 
similar to that of Mr. Henry Oldham are of frequent occurrence. 
In those countries it is called " running a muck.", An individual 
becomes so full of fight that he can no longer contain it ; accord- 
ingly, he arms himself with a species of dagger, very similar to 
that from which Mr. Oldham wiped the blood with his ptcket 
handkerchief, and rushing into the public streets, wounds and 
slays indiscriminately among the crowd. It is true, that this 
gallant exploit always results in the death of the person perform- 
ing it ; the people of the country entertaining a foohsh notion 
that it is too dangerous and expensive a mode of cultivating 
national bravery. But, in the present instance, I trust this rule 
will be relaxed. Mr. Oldham is the only specimen we possess 
of this peculiar habit of the spice islands, and he should be pre- 
served as a curiosity. 

But, alas ! the age of chivalry has gone by ; and in the perfor- 
mance of my duty, I fear I shall have to exhibit some little 
defects in the character of Mr. Oldham, calculated in this censo- 
rious day to detract from his general merits. 

It is with great pain, I feel constrained to say, (for he is a 
sort of favorite of mine)^ that telling the truth is not one of his 
knightly accomplishments, and that his heroic conduct in the 
affray at the Gait House was nothing more nor less, according to 
his own story, than a downright cowardly attempt at assassina- 
tion. 

Eirst, as to his veracity. He says that he was d^ in the pas- 
sage, by Doctor Wilkinson, to whose identity he swears posi- 
tively ; yet it is proven by half a dozen unimpeachable witnesses, 
that the Doctor w^as at that time, hors de coinbat^ beaten to a 
mummy — almost lifeless, and perfectly limber — while his knife 
had fallen from his relaxed and nerveless grasp upon the floor 
of the bar-room, where it was afterwards picked up. 

Yet Oldham swears, manfully, that it w\as the Doctor who cut 
him, though when asked if his face was not bloody, he replied 
that the passage was too dark to enable him distinguish faces. 



THE WILKINSON TRIAL. 99 

If he could not see whether tlie face of the person who cut liim 
was bruised or bloody, how dares he swear it was Doctor Wilkin- 
son, whom he admits he had never seen before ? 

Yet, though his vision was so dull in regard to this matter, it 
was almost supernaturally keen upon another. He swears that 
he was cut by a dirk knife witJi a " white handled Now in 
this dusky passage, where he could not see his assailant's face, 
ho-^ could he distinguish so accurately the character of the wea- 
pon, and more especially, of the handle. The handle of such a 
knive as either of those exhibited, w-ould be entirely concealed 
in the grasp of the holder. But Mr. Oldham could see through 
the hand, and swear to the color of the handle, even when he 
could not distinguish the color of the assailant's face. 

The prosecution seems to be afflicted with a monomania on 
the subject of white-handled knives. The white-handles cause 
them greater terror, and excite more of their observation, than 
the blades. One would almost be led to suppose, from the evi- 
dence, that the defendants held by the blades, and fought with 
the handles. These white handles flash before their eyes like 
the bright inscription upon the dim' steel of a Turkish cimeter. 
I hope, though with many misgivings, that none of them will 
ever die of a "white handle." 

But, to return to my subject, why, in the name of all that is 
human or humane, did Oldham shoot at Murdaugh, whom, he 
acknowledges, he did not know ; of whose connection with Doc- 
tor Wilkinson he was unacquainted ; and who had not attempt- 
ed to do him the shghtest injury ? According to his own 
account of the matter, he acted the part of a base and cowardly 
assassin. If he tells the truth, he is an assassinating villain : if 
he does not, he is a perjured villain, I leave him choice of these 
two horns of the dilemma, though I doubt not the latter is the 
one upon which he is destined to hang. I cannot believe in 
the existence of such a monster as he would make himself out 
to be ; and have offered his conduct to you as evidence of tlie 
existence of a conspiracy, and of his participation in it. It is 
better that he should have the excuse of having fouglit in 
Bedding's quarrel than no excuse at all. 



100 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

Gentlemen of the Jury — I have now performed that portion 
of my task, which embraced the circumstantial evidence. Out 
of the mouths of fifteen different witnesses, most of them gen- 
tlemen of high character and undoubted veracity, I have ex- 
hibited to you an almost countless variety of circumstances, the 
occurrence of which, or of any great portion of them, is abso- 
lutely incompatible with any other hypothesis than that of the 
existence of the conspiracy, which I proposed at the outset to 
prove. 

Upon that hypothesis, all these circumstances are easily expli- 
cable, and in perfect accordance with the ordinary principles of 
human action. 

I have combined the scattered strands of evidence : I have fin- 
ished the cable which I promised ; and now challenge the 
opposing counsel to try their strength upon it. They may pick 
it into oakum ; but I defy them to break it. 

There is one other argument in favor of the view that I 
have taken of the origin of this unfortunate affray, which 
may be properly introduced at this time, and with which I 
shall close this branch of the subject. 

It arises out of the respective characters and positions in lifo of 
the two parties, and is, in my opinion, entitled to great weight. 
"Who, in view of his character and situation, w^as most likely to 
have sought and provoked the unfortunate conflict — Judge 
Wilkinson or Mr. Redding ? The conduct of the Judge, under the 
opprobrious epithets heaped upon liim by Redding, in the bar- 
room, suflBciently indicates, that though he had previously given 
way to sudden passion, he was now cool, collected, and forbear- 
ing. His mind had recovered its balance, and he beha^'ed on 
this occasion, as well as subsequently, with philosophical calm- 
ness. I doubt, gentlemen, whether any of you would have 
permitted Mr. Redding to indulge, with impunity,- in such 
unmeasured abuse. But the situation of the Judge was pecu- 
liar, and every inducement which could operate upon a gentle- 
man, warned him against participation in broils and battles. 
"With buoyant feelings and pulse-quickening anticipations, ho 
had come more than a thousand lailes, upon a pilgrimage to 



THE WILKINSON TRIA! 101 

the shrine of beauty, and not of blood ; upon an errand of love, 
and not of strife. He came to transplant one of Kentucky's 
fairest flowers to the warm gardens of the sunny South. The 
marriage feast wfis spread ; the bridal wreath was woven ; 
and many bounding hearts and sparkling eyes chided the lag- 
ging hours. The thoughts of the bridegroom dwelt not upon the 
ignoble controversy, which, for an unguarded moment, had occu- 
pied his attention, but upon the bright and glorious future, whose 
rapturous visions were about to become enchanting realities. 

Under such circumstances, Judge Wilkinson could not have 
desired the conflict. Had the fires of hell blazed in his 
bosom, they must have been quenched for a while. The very 
fiend of discord would have been ashamed, fresh from a volun- 
tary, vulgar, bloody quarrel, and reeking with its unsightly 
memorials, to have sought the gay wedding banquet. 

You cannot believe he coveted or courted tlie unfortunate 
afifray, without, at the same time, considering him destitute, not 
only of all sentiment of delicacy and refinement, but of every 
characteristic of a man. Does his previous character warrant 
such a conclusion ? He has, as has been shown to you in evi- 
dence, ever maintained the character of an honorable and 
upright gentleman. I see, by the sneer upon the lip of the 
adverse counsel, that the term grates harshly upon his sensibili- 
ties. But, I repeat it. Judge Wilkinson has ever maintained the 
character of a gentleman ; a character directly at war with the 
supposition that his conduct on this occasion, resulted otherwise 
than from necessity. I mean, by " a gentleman," not the broad- 
cloth, but the man ; one who is above doing a mean, a cowardly 
or a dishonest action, whatever may be the temptation ; one 
who forms his own standard of right and will not swerve from 
it ; who regards the opinions of the world much, but his own 
self-respect more. Such men are confined to no particular class 
of society, though, I fear, they do not abound in any. I will 
save the learned counsel the trouble of translating his sneer 
into language, by admitting that they are to be found as readily 
among mechanics as elsewhere. 

Such a man I beheve Judge Wilkinson to be. Such has ever 



102 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

been bis character, and be is entitlecb to the benefit of it on tbis 
occasion. It ought to have, and I know will have very great 
weight with you. Good character always has been, and ever 
should be, a wall of strength around its possessor, a seven-fold 
shield to him who bears it. 

This is one of the advantages which virtue has over vice — 
honorable over dishonorable conduct — an advantage which it is 
the very highest interest of society to cherish and enforce. In 
proportion to the excellence of a man's character, is, and ever 
ought to be, the violence of the presumption that he has been 
guilty of crime. I appeal, then, to Judge Wilkinson's character, 
to prove that he could not have desired this unfortunate contro- 
versy ; that it is impossible he should have been guilty, under 
the circumstances which then surrounded him, of the crime of 
willful and malicious murder. What, on the other hand, was 
the condition of the conspirators ? Kedding had been going about 
from street to street, hke Peter the Hermit, preaching up a 
crusade against the Mississippians. Johnson, like Tecumseh — but 
no, I will not assimilate him to that noble warrior — like an 
Indian runner, was threading each path in the city, inciting his 
tribe to dig up the tomahawk and drive it, not into the scalps, 
but the " steaks " of the foe. But I will not pursue this point 
at greater length. 

I proposed, after arguing the position, that there actually was 
a conspiracy to chastise the defendants, and inflict upon them 
great bodily harm, to show, in the next place, that the defend- 
ants had good reason to believe such a conspiracy existed, 
whether in point of fact it did or not. Most of the arguments 
bearing npon this proposition have been already advanced in 
support of the other. These I will not repeat. There are one 
or two others worthy of notice. What could Judge Wilkinson 
have supposed from the conduct of Redding, but that he sought 
and provoked a difficulty ? What else could he conclude from 
the unmitigated abuse which was heaped upon him, from the 
opening of tbe very sluices of vulgarity ? That the Judge appre- 
hended violence is evident from the warning which he gave. 
He told Pwedding that he might say what he pleased, but not to 



THE WILKINSON TRIAL. 103 

lay his hands upon him ; if he did, he would kill him. He could 
not be supposed to know that Redding came only for the names. 
When Meeks stepped up to Murdaugh and struck him with his 
clubbed whip, Avhile the crowd closed in around, what could 
Murdangli reasonably expect but violence and bodily harm, 
resulting from preconcerted arrangement? Without going at 
length into an argument on this point, I take it for granted, no 
one will deny that the defendants had ample grounds for appre- 
hending the existence, on tlie part of Mr. Redding and his 
friends, of a conspiracy to commit upon them personal violence. 
Let us now look a moment at the conduct of the defendants, 
at the Gait House, and see whether it transcended the bounds of 
right, reason or prudence. Wlien Murdaugh and the Doctor 
entered the room, the exclamation was made, by some one, loud 
enough for all to hear, " There they are — all three of them, 
now ;" upon which, according to nearly all the witnesses, Mr. 
Redding made the reujark to Murdaugh, " You are the man that 
drew the bowie-knife on me." You will recollect Redding had 
just crossed Judge Wilkinson's path, and placed himself with his 
back against the counter, manifestly with the object of bringing 
on the fight. Murdaugh, indignant at being publicly charged 
with having drawn a bowie-knife upon an unarmed man, replied, 
" that any one who said he had drawn a bowie-knife told a d — d 
lie ;" whereupon instantly steps up Meeks, with his knotted cow- 
hide, exclaiming, ''You are the d — d little rascal that did it" — at 
the same time inflicting upon him a very severe blow. By-the- 
by, this assertion of Meeks proves that he had been at Eed- 
diiig's after the first affray, and heard a full account of it. It is 
urged against the Judge, that when Mr. Everett led him to his 
room, he asked for pistols. I think an argument in his favor 
may be drawn from. this circumstance. His requisition for arms 
proves that he considered himself and his friends in great per- 
sonal danger. He manifestly required them not for offence, but 
for defence. Had he intended an attack, he would not have 
gone down to the bar-room without first obtaining the weapons 
he desired. Men do not voluntarily attempt the lives of others 
without being well prepared. It is evident that Judge Wilkin- 



104 



MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 



son and his friends thought only of the protection of their own 
persons ; for they went down stairs provided only with the ordi- 
nary weapons which they were accustomed to bear. Murdaugh 
and the Doctor had a pocket knife each ; the same they had 
previously carried. They had added nothing to their armor, 
either offensive or defensive. The Judge, apprehensive of diffi- 
culty, had taken his bowie-knife, which probably, he had not 
previously worn. When, at the solicitation of Mr. Everett, he 
retired, he doubtless informed his friends of what had just tran- 
spired in the bar-room, and expressed his fears of violence. This 
accounts for the readiness with which Murdaugh met the assault 
of the two powerful men who simultaneously rushed upon him. 

The evidence is conclusive that Meeks commenced the attack 
upon Murdaugh, by two rapid, violent blows of a cow-hide ; ac- 
companied by a heavy blow from a stick or cane in the hands of 
Rothwell. At the same time he seized the hand of Murdaugh, 
in which, prepared for defence, was an open knife ; but Mur- 
daugh, with coolness and celerity, changed the weapon to his 
left hand, and used it according to the dictates both of law and 
common sense. The very first blow had driven him to the wall. 
The crowd closed around ]jim ; he could not retreat, and was 
justified, according to the strictest and most technical principlea 
of even English jurisprudence, to take the life of the assailant. 
No man but a fool or a coward could have acted otherwise than 
he did. "Was he not, according to the rule read by the District 
Attorney, in imminent danger of his life or of great bodily harm ? 
Let the unhealed wound upon his head respond. Let his hat, 
which has been exhibited to you, answer the question. Upon 
this you may perceive two incisions, which must have been 
caused by a sharp, cutting instrument. No obtuse weapon was 
capable of the effect. The blows were manifestly sufficient to 
have caused death, but for the intervention of the elastic material, 
upon which their principal force was expended. The part, then, 
taken by Mr. Murdaugh in the aftray was clearly defensive and 
justifiable. It is not pretended that Doctor Wilkinson took any 
other part in the affray than attempting to escape from ifs vio- 
lence, unless you notice the evidence of Oldham, that he cut him 



THE WILKINSON TRIAL. 105 

as he fled from the room. He "vvas beaten, first by Rothwell, 
then by Holmes, and if you take their own statements, by those 
two worthies, Halbert and Oldham. He was crushed almost to 
atoms. He had not a chance even for self-defence. Rothwell 
had left Mnrdaugh, after striking him one blow, in charge of 
Meeks, and fell upon the Doctor. "While beating the Doctor, he 
was stabbed by the Judge, near the dining-room door. The 
Doctor fled round the room, still followed by Rothwell, who was 
again struck by the Judge, when upon the opposite side. The 
two blows paralyzed his powers ; when Holmes stepped in and 
so completely prostrated the Doctor, that he was compelled to 
hold him up with one hand while he beat him with the other. 

Neither oifensive word nor action, upon this occasion, on the 
part of Dr. Wilkinson, is proven or pretended. It is perfectly 
clear that he was beaten by Redding's friends, simply because 
he was of the Mississippi party. I consider it highly disgrace- 
ful to the Grand Jury wlio found the bill, that he was included 
in it. 

In reference to the part taken by Judge Wilkinson. It is 
proven beyond contradiction, by Mr. Pearson, a gentleman of 
undoubted veracity, that the Judge, at his solicitation, was in 
the act of leaving the room, as the affray commenced ; when, 
witnessing the attack upon Murdaugh, he stopped, refusing to 
leave until he saw the result of the controversy in which his 
friend was engaged. Standing in the corner of the room, he did 
not at first take part in the conflict ; perceiving, doubtless, that 
Murdaugh was making good his own defence. Presently, how- 
ever, he cast his eyes around and saw his brother trodden under 
foot, entirely powerless, and apparently either dead or in imme- 
diate danger from the fierce blows of Rothwell, who, as you 
have heard, was a man of tremendous physical power, and 
armed with a bludgeon, some say a sword cane. Then it was 
he thought it necessary to act ; and advancing through the 
crowd to the spot, he wounded the assailant who Avas crushing 
out his brother's life. Gen. Chambers swears positively that 
Rothwell was beating, with a stick, and with great severity, 
some one, whom the other witnesses identify as the Doctor, at 

VOL. II. 6* 



106 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

the tim6 he was stabbed near the dining-room door. This pro 
duced a shght diversion in the Doctor's favor, who availed him 
self of it, by retreating, in a stooping posture, towards the pas- 
sage door. Eothwell, however, pursued and beat him down, 
but was arrested in his violence, by another blow from Judge 
"VYilkinson, which, together with the puncture in his throat, 
received, in all probability, from a chance thrust of the sword 
cane in the hands of one of his own party, disabled him and 
caused his death. About this time Holmes was completing 
Eothwell's unfinished work, and the Doctor, hunted entirely 
around the room, fell, utterly exhausted, at the feet of his relent- 
less pursuers. It is wonderful that he had strength enough to 
escape with Murdaugh and the Judge. 

Such, briefly, were the parts enacted by these defendants, 
respectively, in this unfortunate affray — the result of which, none 
regret more than themselves. Considering the proof of the con- 
spiracy, and the knowledge, or even the reasonable apprehension 
on the part of the defendants, of its existence, as affording them 
ample justification for their participation in the matter, I have 
not thought it necessary to go into a minute analysis of the evi- 
dence on this branch of the subject, nor to attempt to reconcile 
those slight discrepancies which will always occur in the testi- 
mony of the most veracious witnesses, in giving an account of a 
transaction viewed from different positions, and at different 
periods of time. 

The law of self-defence has always had and ought to have a 
more liberal construction in this country than in England. Men 
claim more of personal independence here; of course they have 
more to defend. They claim more freedom and license in their 
actions towards each other, consequently there is greater reason 
for apprehending personal attack from an enemy. In this t 

country men retain in their own hands a larger portion of their 
personal rights than in any other ; and one will be authorized to 
presume an intention to exercise and enforce them, upon grounds ^ 

that, in other countries, would not excite tlie slightest suspicion. 
It is the apprehension of impending harm, and not its actual exist- 
ence, which constitutes the justification for defensive action. If 



THE WILKINSON TRIAL. 101 

mine enemy point at me an unloaded pistol or a wooden gun, in a 
manner calculated to excite in my mind apprehensions of imme- 
diate, great bodily harm, lam justifiable in taking bis life, though 
it turn out afterwards that I was in no actual danger. 

So, on the other hand, if I take the life of another, without 
being aware of any intended violence on his part, it will 
constitute no excuse for me to prove that he intended an attack 
upon me. 

Tlie apprehension must be reasonable, and its reasonableness 
may depend upon a variety of circumstances — of time, place and 
manner, as well as of character. The same appearance of danger 
would authorize greater apprehension, and of course readier 
defensive action, at night than in the day-time. An attack upon 
one in his own house would indicate greater violence, and excuse 
stronger opposing action, than an attack in the street. 

Indications of violence from an individual of known desperate 
and dangerous character will justify defensive and preventive 
action, which would be inexcusable towards a notorious coward. 
A stranger may reasonably indulge from the appearance or 
threats of a mob, apprehensions that would be unpardonable in 
a citizen surrounded by his friends and neighbors. 

Bearing these observations in mind, let us look at the situation 
of the defendants. They were attacked at their hotel, which, 
for the time being, was their house. They were strangers, and 
a fierce mob had gathered around them, indicating, both by word 
and deed, the most violent intentions. They were three, small, 
weak men, witliout friends — for even the proprietor of the house^ 
who should have protected them, liad become alarmed, and left 
them to their fate. Their enemies were, comparatively, giants 
—dangerous in appearance and desperate in action. Was there 
lot ample ground for the most fearful apprehensions ? 

But the District Attorney says they are not entitled to the 
benefit of the law of self-defence, because they came down to 
supper, and thus placed themselves, voluntarily, within reach of 
the danger. According to his view of the case, they should have 
remained in their chamber, in a state of siege, without the right 
to sally forth, even for provisions ; while the engmy, cutting off 



108 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

their supplies, vroiiW, doubtless, soon have starved them into a 
surrender. But it seems there was a private entrance to tho 
supper table, and they should have skulked in through that. 
No one but a craven coward, unworthy of the privileges of a 
man, would have followed such a course. The ordinary entrance 
to supper was through the bar-room. They had a right to pass 
this way : no law forbade it. Every principle of independence 
and self-respect prompted it. And through that bar-room I 
would have gone, as they did, though the floor had been fresh 
sown with the fabled dragon's teeth, and bristling with its crop 
of armed men. 

I care not whether the assailing party had deadly weapons or 
not; tliough I will, by-and-by, show they had, and used them 
too. But the true question is, whether the defendants had not 
good reason for believing them armed and every way prepared 
for a desperate conflict, I have shown already that Dr. Wilkin- 
son and Murdaugh did not transcend the most technical principle 
laid down by the Commonwealth's attorney ; not even that which 
requires a man to run to the wall before he can be permitted to 
defend himself — a principle which, in practice, is exploded in 
England, and never did obtain in this country at all. But, says 
the learned attorney, Judge Wilkinson interfered, and took part, 
before he was himself attacked : he had no right to anticipate 
the attack upon himself; he had no right to defend his friend ; 
he had no right to protect his brother's life. Now I difler from 
the worthy counsel on all these points: I think he had a right 
to prevent, by anticipating it, violence upon his person ; he had 
a right to defend his friend, and it was his sacred duty to protect 
his brother's life. 

Judge Wilkinson was the most obnoxious of the party ; his 
friends were already overpowered ; he could not expect to 
escape ; and in a moment the whole force of the bandit gang 
would have turned upon him. 

The principles of self-defence, which pervade all animated 
nature, and act towards life the same part that is performed by 
the external mechanism of the eve towards the delicate sense 
of vision — affording it, on the approach of danger, at the same 



THE WILKINSON TRIAL. 109 

lime, warDing and protection — do not require that action shal2 
be withheld till it can be of no avail. When the rattlesnake 
gives warning of his fatal purpose, the wary traveller waits not 
for the poisonous blow, but plants upon his head his armed heel, 
and crushes out, at once, " his venom and his strength." When 
the hunter hears the rustling in the jungle, and beholds the large 
green eyes of the spotted tiger glaring upon him, he waits not 
for the deadly spring, but sends at once through the brain of his 
crouching enemy the swift and leaden death. 

If w^ar was declared against your country by an insulting foe, 
would you wait till your sleeping cities w^ere wakened by the 
terrible music of the bursting bomb ? till your green fields were 
trampled by the hoofs of the invader, and made red with the 
blood of your brethren ? ISTo ! you would send forth fleets and 
armies — you would unloose upon the broad ocean your keen 
falcons — and the thunder of your guns would arouse stern 
echoes along the hostile coast. Yet this would be but national 
defence, and authorized by the same great principle of self-pro- 
tection, which applies no less to individuals than to nations. 

But Judge Wilkinson had no right to interfere in defence 
of his brother ; so says the Conmion wealth's attorney. Go, 
gentlemen, and ask your mothers and sisters whether that bo 
law. I refer you to no musty tomes, but to the living volumes 
of Nature. What ! A man not permitted to defend his brother 
against conspirators ? against assassins, who are crushing out the 
very life of their bruised and powerless victim ? Why, he who 
would shape his conduct by such a principle does not deserve to 
have a brother or a friend. To fight for self is but the result of 
an honest instinct, which we have in common with the brutes. 

To defend those wiio are dear to us, is the highest exercise 
of the principle of self-defence. It nourishes all the noblest 
social qualities, and constitutes the germ of patriotism itself. 

Why is the step of the Kentuckian free as that of the bounding 
deer; firm, manly, and confident, as that of the McGregor 
w^hen his foot was on the heather of his native hills, and his eye 
on the peak of Ben Lomond ? It is because he feels independent 
and proud; independent in the knowledge of his rights, and 



110 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

proud in the generous consciousness of ability and courage to 
defend them, not only in his own person, but in the persons of 
those who are dear to him. 

It was not the blood that would desert a brother or a friend, 
which swelled the hearts of your fathers in the " olden time," 
when, in defence of those they loved, they sought the red savage 
through all the fastnesses of his native forest. It was not such 
blood that was poured out, free as a gushing torrent, upon the 
dark banks of the melancholy Raisin, when all Kentucky manned 
her warrior sires. They were as bold and true as ever fought 
beneath a plarae. The Roncesvalles pass, when fell before the 
opposing lance the harnessed chivalry of Spain, looked not upon, 
a braver or a better band. 

Kentucky has no law which precludes a man from defending 
himself, his brother, or his friend. Better for -ludge Wilkinson 
had he never been born, than that he should have fjiiled in his 
duty on this occasion. Had he acted otherwise than he did, he 
would have been ruined in his own estimation, and blasted in the 
opinions of the world. And young Murdaugh, too; he has a 
mother, who is looking even now from her window, anxiously 
watching for her son's return — but better, both for her and him, 
that he should have been borne a bloody corpse to her arms, than 
that he should have carried to her, unavenged, the degrading 
marks of the accursed whip. 

But there was danger, as well as degradation. Their lives 
were in imminent hazard. Look at the cuts in Murdaugh's hat 
and upon his head, the stab received by the Judge, and the 
wounds inflicted upon the Doctor. Besides the overwhelming 
superiority in number and strength, the conspirators had very 
greatly the advantage in weapons. We have proven the exhibi- 
tion and use, by them, of knives, dirks, a sword cane, and a 
pistol, without counting the bludgeons, which, in the hands of 
such men, are weapons little less deadly than the others. 

Need I dwell hmger upon this point? ISTeed I say that the 
defendants are no murderers ? that they acted in self defence, 
and took life from necessity, not from malice ? 

But there is a murderer— and, strange to say, his name appears 



THE WILKINSON TRIAL. Ill 

upon the indictment, not as criminal, but as prosecutor. His 
garments are wet with the blood of those upon whose deaths 
you hold this solemn inquest. Yonder he sits, allaying for a 
moment the hunger of that fierce vulture, conscience, by casting 
before it the food of pretended regret, and false, but apparent 
eagerness for justice. He hopes to appease the manes of his 
slaughtered victims — victims to his falsehood and treachery — by 
sacrificing upon their graves a hecatomb of innocent men. By 
base misrepresentations of the conduct of the defendants, he 
induced his imprudent friends to attempt a vindication of his 
pretended wrongs, by violence and bloodshed. His clansmen 
gathered at his call, and followed him for vengeance; but when 
the fight began, and the keen weapons clashed in the sharp 
conflict— where was this wordy warrior ?—x\ye, "Where was 
Eoderick then ?" l^o " blast upon his bugle horn " encouraged 
his companions as they were laying down their lives in his 
quarrel : no gleam of his dagger indicated a desire to avenge 
their fall — with treacherous cowardice he left them to their fate ; 
and all his vaunted courage ended in ignominious flight. 

Sad and gloomy is the path that hes before him. You will in 
a few moments dash, untasted, from his lips the sweet cup of 
revenge; to quaff whose intoxicating contents he has paid a 
price that would have purchased the goblet of the Egyptian 
queen. I behold gathering around him, thick and fast, dark and 
corroding cares. That face, which looks so ruddy, and even now 
is flushed with shame and conscious guilt, will from this day grow 
pale, until the craven blood shall refuse to visit his haggard 
cheek. In his broken and distorted sleep, his dreams will be 
more fearful than those of the " false, perjured Clarence;" and 
around his waking pillow, in the deep hour of night, will flit the 
ghosts of Rothwell and of Meeks, shrieking their curses in his 
shrinking ear. 

Upon his head rests not only all the blood shed in this unfortu- 
nate strife, but also the sonl-killing crime of perjury ; for, surely 
as he lives, did the words of craft and falsehood fall from his lips, 
ere they were hardly loosened from the Holy Volume. But I 
dismiss him, and do consign him to the furies— trusting, in all 
charity, that the terrible punishment he must suffer from the 



1 



112 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

Bcorpion-lash of a guilty conscience will be considered in his last 
account. 

Johnson and Oldham, too, are murderers at heart. But I shall 
make to them no appeal. There is no chord in their bosoms 
which can render back music to the touch of feeling. They have 
both perjured themselves. The former cut up the truth as coolly 
as if he had been carving meat in his own stall. The latter, on 
the contrary, wa>s no longer the bold and hot-blooded knight ; 
but the shrinking, pale-faced witness. Cowering beneath your 
stern and indignant gaze, marked you not how " his coward lip 
did from its color fly ;" and how his quailing eye sought from floor 
to rafter protection from each honest glance. 

It seems to me that the finger of Providence is visible in the 
protection of the defendants. Had this affair occurred at Mr. 
Eedding's Coffee House, instead of the Gait House, nothing could 
have saved them. Their lives would have been sworn away, 
without remorse, by Eedding and his gang. All that saved them 
from sacrifice was the accidental presence of gentlemen, whose 
testimony cannot be doubted, and who have given an honest and 
true account of the transaction. 

Gentlemen of the Jury : — I shall detain you no longer. It was, 
in fact, a matter of supererogation for me to address you at all, 
after the lucid and powerful exposition of the case, which has 
been given by my respected friend, Col. Eobertson. It was 
doubly so, when it is considered that I am to be succeeded by a 
gentleman (Judge Eowan), who, better, perhaps, than any other 
man Uving, can give you, from his profound learning and expe- 
rience, a just interpretation of the laws of your State; and in 
his own person, a noble illustration of that proud and generous 
character which is a part of the birthright of a Kentuckian. 

It is true, I had hoped, whe^ the evidence was closed, that 
the Commonwealth's attorney might have found it in accordance 
with his duty and his feelings to have entered, at once, a nolle 
lyrosequi. Could the genius of " Old Kentucky " have spoken, 
such would have been her mandate. Blushing with shame at 
the inhospitable conduct of a portion of her sons, she would have 
hastened to make reparation. 

Gentlemen — Let her sentiments be spoken by you. Let your 



THE WILKINSON TRIAL. 113 

verdict take character from the noble State which you in part 
represent. Without leaving your box, announce to the world 
that here the defence of one's own person is no crime ; and that 
the protection of a brother's life is the subject of approbation, 
rather than of punishment. 

Gentlemen of the Jury : — I return you my most profound and 
sincere thanks for the kindness with which you have hstened to 
me, a stranger, pleading the cause of strangers. 

Your generous and indulgent treatment I shall ever remember 
with the most grateful emotions. 

In full confidence that you, by your sense of humanity and 
justice, will supply the many defects in my feeble advocacy, I 
now resign into your hands the fate of my clients. As you shall 
do unto them, so, under like circumstances, may it be done unto 
you. 



1J4 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS 



CHAPTER XYII. 

Return to Vicksburg — Resumes the Practice of Law — Letters — Is solicited to become 
a Candidate for the Senate of the United States — Correspondence on the 
Subject — Letter to the "Whigs of Madison County — Interest felt in the Election in 
other Parts of the Country — Letter to him from J. J. Crittenden — The Canvass — 
Letters. 

^T. 30. 1839. 

The following letters will show with what satisfaction 
Mr. Prentiss turned his back upon politics, and devoted 
himself again to the practice of his profession. His very 
chirography betokens how grateful to him was the change. 
Most of his Washington letters were evidently scribbled off 
in a hurry ; but no sooner did he find himself alone, once 
more, in his office at Vicksburg, than his handwriting 
becomes careful, clear, and indicative of a mind at rest. 

TOHISSISTERABBY. 

Vicksburg, March 2i, 1S39. 

My Dear Sistee : — 

I got home on yesterday, in good health, though 
somewhat fatigued with the journey. I stopped a week in 
Kentucky, to assist in the defence of Judge "Wilkinson and his 
friends, who were tried on an indictment for murder, arising out 
of an affray which occurred at Louisville during the winter, and 
an exaggerated account of which you doubtless saw in the 
newspapers. Judge Wilkinson is an old friend of mine ; you 
may recollect, he called and took tea with me several years ago, 
at Mrs. n 's, in New York, at the time you were there. I 



LETTERS. 115 

was very mncli gratified in complying with his request, notwith- 
stantliog my anxiety to get home. The trial took place at 
Ilarrodsburg, and resulted in the entire acquittal of the Judge 
and his friends, it appearing in evidence that they acted wholly 
in self-defence, against a number of men wlio had conspired 
together for the purpose of beating them. You will probably 
see some account of the trial in the newspapers. Times are very 
severe in Mississippi, and I fear will be still worse. There is no 
business doing, except in law, which is flourishing enougli — too 
much so for the good of the people. I am going immediately 
into the practice, and shall have as much as I can attend to. 
You can hardly imagine ray pleasure at being relieved from 
political obligations and labors, and returning to my professional 
pursuits. Indeed, I much prefer the practice of law to the 
practice of politics. I have not seen Judge Guion yet, and 
cannot, therefore, inform you whether he will visit Portland this 
summer. If he does not, of course I shall, for the purpose of 
bringing out Anna to spend the winter here, as I believe it is 
already understood. I am now waiting for a boat to go about 
one hundred miles up the river to attend a court, where I have 
a very important case. So, you see, I am going back to my 
profession right zealously. 

As soon as I return, which will be in a week, I shall write 
again, and more at length. By-the-by, I saw S. at Cincin- 
nati, for a few moments only ; he was in fine health and spirits. 
I am quite impatient to hear from you, and hoped to find letters 
here, but was disappointed. I think I hear a boat connng up 
the river, so I must be oflf. Good-bye. My love to you all. 

Your aflfectionate brother, 

Seaegent. 



TO niS YOUNGEST BEOTHEE. 

ViCKSBUBQ, April 28, 1S39. 

Deae Geoege : — 

I suppose my next letter will have to be addressed 
to you across the Atlantic. You must advise with some intelli- 



'k'- 



116 . MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

gent person in New York as to the mode in which remittances 
are to be made. You will, of course, write to me before leaving, 
giving a minute account of your plans and arrangements. I 
suppose you will go out in one of the steam-packets. Take the 
Great Western, if you can. She is, doubtless, the safest as well 
as most convenient of them. By-the-by, tell me what you got 
from Mr. Webster ; he promised me to give you both letters and 
counsel.* And now, my dear brother, good bye. !5k[ay pleasant 

* Mr. Webster gave me one letter, which proved so invaluable that I must be 
pardoned for seizing this opportunity to pay a brief tribute of gratitude to the 
memory of him, to whose kindness and hospitality it at once introduced me. He 
had, for many years, been employed in the diplomatic service of his country, and 
was, at this time, her Minister at the court of Berlin. Never have the United 
States been represented abroad by a worthier — rarely, if ever, by a more accom- 
plished — man. In many respects, he was the model of an American diplomatist. A 
thorough Republican in spirit and in principle, he was as far removed from the temper 
of the noisy propagandist as from that of the servile courtier. It seemed to be his aim 
to commend the Free Institutions of his country to the coufidence and good-will of the 
wisest and best — not of the worst — men in the old world. Such was certainly the 
efifect of his influence, official and personal. No intelligent European would ever 
have inferred from his temper or proceedings, that the people of the United States 
must belong to an inferior grade of civilization. Nor had any American ti-aveller 
ever occasion to blush for shame, or to utter a patriotic groan, at the name of Henry 
Wheaton. He never mistook boastful national conceit for democracy ; or blustering 
insolence for patriotism. He was, indeed, an ornament and an honor to his coun- 
trymen. His modest dignity, his gentle scholarly manners, his great learning, his 
large-hearted philanthropy, the child- like purity of his character, and his solid 
republican virtues, made him an object of sincere respect and affection to all who 
enjoyed his acquaintance. It is well known that he had the cordial personal esteem 
of the King and Queen of Prussia ; while the illustrious Humboldt, and many other 
of the most distinguished savanis and statesmen of Germany, France, and England, 
were happy to regard him as a friend. His fine literary culture is evinced by the 
high character of his publications ; several of which, if I mistake not, were first 
written in French. As a publicist, Mr. Wheaton won a European reputation. Hia 
works on International Law have taken rank among the weightiest authorities in 
that science. They are cited as such, not only in our own state-papers, but in the 
British Parliament, and by foreign cabinets. 

What a sad comment upon the essential barbarism of our American " spoils- 
system " is alforded, when its foul and ruthless hand is laid upon such a sensitivs, 
refined, and noble nature as Henry Wheaton's ! He recoils and withers under ii 
as at the touch of a poisonous reptile. After twenty years of faithful and eminent 
labors in the foreign service of the Republic — labors which only fitted him to be 
still more useful — he is recalled to make way perhaps for some political partisan 
and student of French, is turned adrift among a new generation, and — his hard- 
earned reputation used in defence of the international rights and honor of hia 



LETTERS. 117 

gales and safe waves conduct you to the Land of onr Forefatliers 
— that Old World of which we have read so much, and upon the 
dust of whose forgotten generations you will so shortly tread. 
The very idea of pressing the soil of ancient, mighty Europe — 
where the human mind has attained the highest cultivation, and 
the human powers and passions have made their most tremendous 
developments — fills me with a solemn mysterious awe. What 
thousands of imprisoned thoughts will be suddenly let loose 
from tke cells of your' mind, when you first cast your eyes upon 
the haughty mistress of arts and science. With what boyish 
curiosity will you gaze upon the most common objects, and, in 
spite of reason and knowledge, half wonder to find the trees, 
the flowers, and even the very earth, so like that you left 
behind! But I will not tell you what your feehngs will be. 
You must tell them to me, freshly as they arise. Let me impress 
this one thing upon you — that you cannot write me too often or 
too minutely of what you see and think. Of advice or counsel 
I have none to give ; I deem you every way capable of judging 
for yourself. I have the most imphcit confidence in your pru- 
dence and discretion, and esteem it a high happiness that 
fortune has made me a trustee to furnish you the means of 
obtaining, from the best fountains, that knowledge for which 
you have exhibited so great a thirst. For myself, I hope, in a 
couple of years, to visit Europe also. In the meantime, I shall 
pursue my profession, of which I have no right to complain, for 
it has showered its favors upon me with great profusion. I am 
already immersed in business, and shall have more than T wish. 
I mention this to remove from your mind any fears in relation 
to pecuniary matters. I have no doubt that in two years I shall 
be able to quit, entirely unembarrassed, and with ample fortune. 
In the meantime, my afiairs are all going on smoothly, and so 



country ! Such is the gratitude of party-politics ! Mr. Wheaton was a genuine 
scholar. Ho delighted in books and in literary conversation. This, joined to his 
large acquaintance with public afifairs, both at home and abroad, rendered his 
society highly instructive to a young student. I often met him on his solitary walk 
Unter den Linden, and passed many a pleasant evening at his house, the recollec- 
tion of which is fresh and most grateful still. His name is worthy to be held in 
lasting remembrance in our American Republic of Letters. — Ed. 



118 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

Boon as these horrible tiraes shall have passed away, my property 
will be more valuable than before. I shall not come North this 
summer, but Judge Guion and wife will ; they start the last ot 
next month or first of June. Anna will come out with. Mrs. G. 
Again good-bye. God bless and speed you. 

Your affectionate brother, 

Seaegext. 



TO HIS SISTEE ANNA. 

ViCKSBURG, May 26, 1839. 
My deae Sister : — 

Yours of last month has just reached me. What 
a long, tedious journey it has made! I had become quite alarm- 
ed at not hearing from yon for such a period. I trust this will 
find you still at Boston, enjoying yourself in the society of your 
young friends, and laying up sufficient store of health to last 
you to Mississippi. 

Judge Guion and wife will start in about two weeks, and 
will be at Portland by the middle of July. You will find it, I 
doubt not, very pleasant journeying with them. It is not abso- 
lutely impossible, though very improbable, that I may come on 
myself late in the summer. It will defiend entirely upon business 
arrangements. I think you had better come out in the fall by 
sea. It will be the easiest mode of travelling at that season, and 
will, I think, be beneficial to you, and Mrs. G., whose health 
is feeble. I have made Judge Guion promise to take a trip io 
the White Mountains. You must go and renew your acquaint- 
ance with those gems of literature, which sparkle along the road, 
and which excited our admiration last summer. You will find 
Judge G. a gentleman of very noble qualities, and of an ex- 
ceeding kind disposition. He will feel at home with you, and 
already considers himself as an old acquaintence of the family. 
I hope he will become acquainted with Little, Fessenden, and 
other of the intelligent gentlemen of Portland. I should have 
been delighted to have been at your and Abby's party. When I 
come home again, we'll have a famou? one. I'll have my col- 



LETTERS. 119 

lar starched, anci my hair pomatumed, and for once, be silly, and 
act the gallauj;. By that time I shall have rubbed off something 
of the lion, and trust that I shall not be stared at, like a wild 
beast just from the desert. By-the-by, I have astonished the 
people much in these parts, by giving up lionizing. They couh. 
hardly believe me in earnest. Poor souls i they have no idea 
that any one should prefer to be a man rather than a beast. Most 
people, doubtless, consider me very silly for doing what I con- 
sider the wisest act of my life. Very well, I look upon the pub- 
lic as a great fool, and care but little for its opinion, so that we 
are even in our estimate of each other. However, I ought 
not to speak harshly of them, for the good idiots have annoyed 
me with a great deal of politeness and genuine kindness, for all 
which, as in duty bound, I feel extremely thankful. If I ever 
have an opportunity for doing them a service, I believe I shall 
do it. But enough of the public, I am much gratified that 
mother took a trip to Boston, and that she was so much pleased 
with it. Now she has broken the ice, I hope she will visit New 
York. I suppose by the time this reaches you, George will be 
upon the " dark blue sea," wending his way to the old woidd. I 
trust that his anticipations will be realized, and that he will 
reap both pleasure and profit. I doubt not that he will do so, 
and in about two years, I shall try the experiment myself. But 
I am prosing away upon too many subjects, and will save you 
the trouble of reading a list of my intentions, by giving you the 
catalogue orally when we meet. Give my respects to Mr. 

A , Avhom I had the pleasure of meeting in Washington last 

winter, and for the kindness of whose family towards you and 
mother, I feel much bound. May Heaven bless you, my dearest 
Bister, is ever the wish of your afi:ectionate brother 

Seargext. 



TO HIS SISTER ABBT. 

ViCKSBURQ, June 12, 1889. 



Deae Abet : — 

Since I wrote last, I liave been quite busy, and 
most of the time have ])een away from home. A few days age 



120 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

I was at Port Gibson, where I went to defend a man, who was 
tried for murder. I was successful in acquitting him. From 
thence I went to Jackson to attend the Chancery Court, and 
returned the first of this week. My professional labors are now 
pretty much over for the summer, though I shall still have 
abundance of occupation, in preparing and arranging business 
for next winter. The weather is excessively warm here; indeed, 
it has been the warmest spring I have ever known. The health 
of the country i'^, however, very good. Judge Gruion and his 
wife started about a week ago ; but, as they will linger upon 
the way, I presume this letter will reach you first. I have no 
doubt they will be much pleased with Portland, and gratified 
with their visit. I got a letter yesterday from Anna, in which 
she gave me a very amusing account of her trip up to Boston. 
Poor girl ! she had a sad time of it, and must have snfiered 
excessively. I hope it will not discourage her about coming out 
this fall. I suppose against this reaches you, she will be at 
home, and is perhaps looking over your shoulder, while you are 
reading; if so, tell her T sympathize with her on account of her 
Bufferings both from sea-sickness, and from old maids. I trust 
she has had a pleasant time of it, and that she is improved both 
in health and spirits. I got a letter from G. to-day, dated upon 
the eve of his departure for Europe. And he has gone sure 
enough, and is now half-way across the Atlantic. The only 
regret I feel in his going, arises from the loss you will sustain, 
in the want of his society. You will, doubtless, all of you, 
feel very lonesome for a while, but his letters will soon make 
some amends for his absence, and I doubt not, when he returns, 
you will have no cause to regret his visit to the Old Country. 
Indeed it is an easier trip to go to Europe than to come here, 
and when Anna gets to Yicksburg, she will have beaten G. as 
a traveller. Good bye. My love to you all. 

Ever your affectionate 

Seaegknt. 



LETTERS. 121 

TO HIS YOUNGEST BROTHER. 

ViOKSBCBQ, Jv/ne \Wiy 1839. 

Dear George : — 

Yours of the 1st inst., announcing your immediate 
departure, has just been received. I do not know but you were 
wise in selecting a packet ship. I recommended the Great 
Western, presuming you would take a steamer, because I think 
ohe has been better tested, and is the safest of the class. And 
so you have at length "laid your hand upon old ocean's mane," 
and passed that mysterious barrier, which at first view seems to 
have been intended as a limit to man's enterprise, and a chain 
upon his insolent ambition ; but if so, he has triumphed over the 
intention of nature, and compelled to his will the vast element, 
which seemed most independent of him. And how do you feel 
in the Old World ? How does it look ? Has age written wrinkles 
upon its brow, or is it not fairer and more youthful in appearance 
than that which is called the New ? You do right in visiting 
England, before you go to the Continent. The haughty Island 
exhibits, without doubt, far beyond any other portion of the 
world; the results of civilization and the social system, the 
triumph of arts and arms. Besides, England is our own country, 
and the bones of our fathers rest in her green bosom. By-the- 
by, if it should come in your way, I would like to have you make 
some inquiry in relation to the two branches of our family. 
The Prentiss branch is, I believe, English, and the Lewis is, a3 
the name indicates, of Welsh origin. This is the whole amount 
of my genealogical knowledge. It is possible you may meet my 
friend Mr. Shields somewhere in England or Germany. He will, 
probably, return to the United States this fall. I trust you may 
meet him ; and then, when he gets back, he can tell me all about 
you. I have been very busy in my professional business since I 
came home, but have pretty much disposed of it for the summer. 
I shall try now and get a few weeks' rest — a thing I very much 
need. I think, in eighteen months, I shall be able to place my 
affairs in such a situation as to enable me to quit the practice. 
This I could do in less time, were it not for the desperate con- 

VOL. II. 6 



122 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

dition of this country at present. There is neither money, 
credit, nor confidence, and I fear some time will elapse before 
either is restored. My profession stands me in stead now, and 
prevents the necessity of sacrificing any of my property. I have 
just as much business as I wish, or can attend to, and feel 
myself independent of any contingencies. Judge Giiion and his 
wife started some ten days since, and will be in Portland about 
the middle of July. I shall take great delight in Anna's society 
this winter, and in the spring shall accompany her home, and 
spend the whole summer at the N'orth. I regret much to hear 
you speak so seriously of your health, and caution you, by all 
means, to abstain from sacrificing it by study or sedentary 
pursuits. If you find the evil continue, take a pedestrian tour 
through Switzerland, and you will gain knowledge and health 
both. Much of the most valuable learning cannot be obtained 
from books, but only from observation and experience. Mingle, 
therefore, in society as extensively as your inclinations will 
permit. Explore the di&erent strata of humanity, and not con- 
fine yourself to the surfiice. The knowledge of mind can no 
more be obtained from books alone, tlian a knowledge of mine- 
ralogy. In both cases, you must inspect, not only the precious 
stones, but the coarse and common materials, if you would 
become an adept in the science. I have nothing new to tell 
you, and therefore will not saddle you with a double letter ; so, 
good-bye, and let me hear from you very often. 

Yours affectionately, 

Seaegent. 



Early in the summer of this year, Mr. Prentiss was 
called upon, by the unanimous and urgent voice of the 
Whig party of Mississippi, to become their candidate for 
United States Senator, in place of the Hon. Robert 
J. Walker, afterwards the distinguished Secretary of the 
Treasury. This movement on the part of his political 
friends, was entirely spontaneous — occurred, indeed, whil« 



o 



POLITICAL CORRESrONDENCE. 12 

he was absent from the State — aud was known to be in 
direct hostility to his own inclinations and cherished plans. 
But no sooner was his name suggested, than the matter 
was decided by popular acclamation. No choice was 
left him. It would require a book by itself to record 
the proceedings aud correspondence of public meetings, 
held in the different counties of the State, to secure, or 
ratify, his nomination. 

The following correspondence will serve as a specimen of 
the whole : — 



Natchez, July 16, 1839. 

Hon. S. S. Peentiss. 

Sir : — A meeting of the citizens of Adams County, 
unexampled in its magnitude and respectability, held in this city 
on Monday, the 15th inst., have delegated us to address you, and 
make known their unanimous wish, that you would consent to 
become a candidate for the Senate of the United States. 

We know that it is your desire to retire from the scenes of 
public life; but we confidently believe, that when the voice of 
your fellow-citizens is lieard, you will, however reluctantly as 
regards yourself, accede to their request. 

The present is no ordinary period in our State and national 
history. Demagogues, as destitute of principle as of reason, are 
stirring up the elements of strife, and endeavoring to array one 
portion of the comnjnnity against another, and, in the mask of 
friendship, are showing themselves by their insidiousness to be 
the sworn enemies of the people and their liberties. The citi- 
zens of this county opposed to their vile machinations, and the 
whole train of the insane and corrupt measures of the present 
Administration, call upon you to consult the public welfare and 
the cause of our country. They appeal to your Avell-known 
patriotism and tried political firmness, and hope that at this 
eventful crisis you will, as heretofore, be ready to sacrifice per- 
sonal considerations to the demands of public duty. 
• Trusting that your views on this important subject may 



11 i 



MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 



coincide with those of your fellow-citizens, with the utmost 

respect, 

"We remain, yours, &c. 



Wu. St. Jno. Elliot, 
Graftox Bakee, 
s. muechison, 
OnAS. A. Lacoste, 
P. L. Mitchell, 
C. Rawlixgs, 
P. H. McGraw, 
H. W. Huntixgtox, 
F. Beaumont, 
Levin Covington, 



J AS. C. "WiLKINS, 

W. 0. Conner, 
Sam'l. Cotton, 
Sam'l. B. Newman, 
Alex. Montgomery, 
Tnos. Henderson, 
S. H. B. Black, 
Mark Izod, 
Elias Ogden, 
J, T. Griffith. 



ViCKSBURG, Aug. 16, 1839. 

Gentlemen : — 

I was honored several days since by the receipt 
of your favor of the 16th ultimo, informing me of the proceed- 
ings of a meeting of the citizens of Adams County, requesting 
to know whether I will consent to become a candidate for the 
Senate of the United States. Severe indisposition will, I trust, 
afford a sufficient excuse for the delay which has occurred in 
responding to your kind and flattering communication. 

My ambition never suggested to me the idea of seeking the 
high station to which the partial consideration of a portion of 
my fellow-citizens has recently called my attention. I know 
well the responsibility which devolves upon the representative 
of a sovereign and independent State, and that mature experi- 
ence and ample capacity are requisite in the council-chamber of 
the Senate. If, then, I should seem to disregard these qualifica- 
tions by acceding to your wishes, a portion of the blame which 
attaches to my presumption will properly belong to those who 
excited it. "Whatever may have been my private views and 
intentions, I do not hesitate to abandon them at the desire of 
those with whom I have so long been laboring in a great and 



POLITICAL CORRESPONDENCE. 126 

holy canse. I hold the contest in which we are engaged, nc 
less important than that wliich achieved our liberties. The 
tyranny of corruption is more dangerous and more galling thar 
the tyranny of arms ; and defeat in defence of the principles of 
our Fathers, if we have performed our duty, is not less glorious, 
nor less honorable, than the death of the patriot upon a well- 
fought battle-field. 

Without hesitation, then, I will frankly say, that my services 
are at the command of the State, thougli I did not consider 
them of sufficient im])ortance, ever to have tendered them 
voluntarily. Having already responded, at some length, upon the 
same subject, to my fellow-citizens in another portion of the 
State, I do not deem it necessary, at present, to go into a dis- 
cussion of political matters. I cannot conclude, liowever, 
without an expression of my deep gratification at the unimpaired 
confidence of my fellow-citizens of Adams, niost of whom I am 
proud to call not only political, but personal friends. Will you 
please to tender to them assurances of my most grateful regard ; 
and for yourselves, gentlemen, most of whose names are familiar 
to me as household words, accept my thanks for the kind 
manner in which you have performed your duty, together with 
my best wishes for your individual happiness. 

Very respectfully. 

Your friend, and fellow-citizen, 

S. S. Peentiss. 

The letter above referred to was addressed to the Whigs 
of Madison County.* It is as follows : — 



♦ It would be aside from our purpose to go into an exposition of the great finan- 
cial controversy touched upon in this letter, and which sprung out of Gen. Jackson'a 
wa/ upon the United States Bank and Mr. Van Buren's Sub-Treasury Scheme. 
But the reader, who is inclined to examine the subject, will find it fully discussed, 
and the arguments on both sides unfolded with masterly ability, in the fourth 
volume of Webster's Works; in the second volume of Clay's Life and Speechea 
(Mallory's edition) ; and in the third volume of Calhoun's Speeches. The Mes- 
sages of Gen. Jackson ind Mr. Van Buren, as also the speeches of Col. Benton, 
Mr. Legare, and Silas Wright— not to mention others— might also be consulted 



126 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

ViCKSBUK«, Aug. 10, 1889. 

Gentlemen : — 

I have been honored by the receipt of your letter 
of th^ 29th of June, transmitting to me a copy of the proceed- 
ings of the "Whigs of Madison County, at a public meeting held 
by them, " for the purpose of recommending a candidate to 
succeed the Hon. R. J. Walker in the Senate of the United 
States." 

My own nomination for that office of high honor and trust was 
entirely unexpected, and at once gratified and perplexed me. I 
am not insensible to that ambition which seeks the good opinion 
of others, and is gratified by its exhibition, even when colored 
by kind partiality and friendly prejudice. That the Whigs of 
Madison deem me worthy of occupying a seat in the highest 
deliberative body on earth, has not failed to awaken the most 
grateful emotions. But I was perplexed as to the course proper 
for me t^ pursue. I had never indulged the vanity of supposing 
that my services could be of sufficient importance to require my 
continuance in political life any lunger than my inclinations 
prompted. Accordingly, after mature reflection, I long since 
determined to abandon, at the earliest opportunity, all partici- 
pation, except as a private citizen, in political affairs ; in the 
contests of which, even my limited observation had discovered 
imbecility too frequently pass for capacity, hypocrisy for candor, 
and cold-hearted selfishness for ardent and disinterested patriot- 
ism. Political science has become, for the most part, the 
science of deception. Not only are the dictates of reason and 
experience set at naught, but facts themselves defied. Physical 
truths, no less than moral, which have for ages been considered 
impregnable, fall like beleaguered cities before the cunning 
devices of modern political warfare. The mausoleum of history 
afibrds no protection for the remains of the past. Political 
sorcery evokes from them foul spirits which never actuated or 
controlled their existence — and the events of a former age are 



to advantage. It is a pity that no collection of Mr. Wright's speeches has 
yet appeared. He was one of the most distinguished leaders of the Demo- 
cratic party, and well deserved such a memorial. 



LETTER TO WHIGS OF MADISON COUNTY. 12t 

compelled to bear false witness before the present. What hap« 
pened yesterday is denied to-day, and plain, modest truth is 
stared out of countenance by audacious mendacity. The conclu- 
sion, therefore, is not to be wondered at, tliat in these dark and 
corrupt times, private happiness and public service are incom- 
patible. 

Both inclination and private interest forbade me to abandon 
my cherished and rapidly maturing plans of future life, and 
admonished me of the rashness of again plunging among the wild 
breakers of public opinion, where the bark that moves straight 
forward is almost sure to be swamped, while the tacking and 
veering craft, by adapting itself to each sudden change of wind 
and wave, gains the port In safety. On the other hand, I could 
not forget the obligations which bind me to our beloved State — 
obhgations that shall never call upon me in vain, when they 
point out a mode by which I can liquidate any portion of tho 
heavy claim Mississippi justly holds against me. JSTeither was I 
regardless of the gratitude due to the "Whigs for the bold, 
untiring, and successful warfare which they have waged against 
the party in power ; a party under the baneful influence of whose 
destructive theories and corrupt practices the prosperity of this 
great nation has withered and died. Above all, I remembered 
with pride and exultation that the Whigs of Mississippi had 
preserved the honor of the State, when the opposite party, Esau- 
Hke, w^as bargaining it away for a mess of political pottage. They, 
and they alone, are entitled to the immortal praise of having 
warded oif the first traitorous blow aimed at the elective fran- 
chise. It was beneath their stern response that the servile tools 
of the President shrunk abashed, and it was upon their mandate 
they surrendered the rich jewel they had stolen. 

Me the Whigs have already honored far beyond my humble 
deserts, and in retiring from political contests, I did not doubt 
that I should be succeeded by those who would, with equal zeal 
and ampler capacity, fight the great battle of principle. 

I hesitated, therefore, on. receiving your communication, not 
from any' question of my duty in sacrificing private and personal 
considerations to the success of the good cause, but from fears 



128 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

lest the partialities of my friends in Madison had betrayed them 
into an injudicious selection. From the subsequent action of the 
Whigs in other parts of the State, however, I have been forced to 
the conclusion, that, whether judiciously or not, they are clcsi- 
rous of placing me in nomination. Being convinced of this fact 
from the proceedings of various public meetings, as well as from 
the general expression of the "Whig press, I do not hesitate any 
longer in placing myself in the hands of my political friends, with 
the distinct understanding, that inasmuch as I accede to their 
wishes, not from motives of personal aggrandizement, but from 
. a sincere desire to do my duty to the country, so my name shall 
be at once withdrawn from nomination, should subsequent obser- 
vation indicate, as it very probably will, some more appropriate 
candidate. 

The reasonable license of an epistle will hardly admit of an 
extended exposition of political doctrines ; nor, indeed, do I 
consider it the most desirable channel for their inculcation. 
Neither do I deem it requisite for me, on the present occasion, 
to go into any labored disquisition upon subjects which I have 
had the good fortune to discuss before the people at large, in 
almost every county of the State. I need only say that my 
opinions in relation to the present Administration, and its mea- 
sures, have been greatly fortified by the observation and experi- 
ence of the last year. The developments which have been 
made in relation to the conduct of the financial aflTairs of the 
government, have astonished and s-hocked the w^hole nation. It 
is now a matter not of mere surmise or partisan invective, but 
of solemn demonstration, based upon admitted and undeniable 
facts — ^facts investigated, vouched for, and pubhshed under the 
deliberate sanction of the popular branch of Congress — that the 
Treasury department is rotten to the core ; that it is but the 
pander to executive power, and exercises its high functions, not 
for the good of the country, but of party ; not honestly, for the 
general welfare, but wickedly and corruptly for the most sinister 
purposes. Since Mr. Van Buren ascended the chair of state, it 
has exhibited a system of peculation aud connivance unprece- 
dented in any government. The correspondence between its 



LETTER TO WHIGS OF MADISON COUNTY. 129 

chief and his subordinates is offensive to the moral sense, and 
insuhing to the intelligence of the people. Its open and 
unblushing profligacy would have shocked even the loose notions 
of that most venal of ministers, Sir Robert Walpole, whose poli- 
tical maxim was, that '-^ every man lias his priced Corruption 
has been traced, not merely to the doors, but into the very 
recesses of the temple. By the f()0tprints upon the floor we 
have discovered, as did the Chaldeans of old, that the rich ofter- 
ings laid by the people upon the shrine, have been carried away 
and consumed, not by the god, but by the juggling priests. 

Under ordinary circumstances, and in ordinary times, the 
developments to which I allude would have prostrated' any 
administration, however powerful. Unfortunately the deep 
distress which has pervaded the country, and spread dismay and 
ruin through all the avenues of business, has in some degree 
withdrawn the eyes of the people from these great enormities, 
and directed them with melancholy earnestness to their own 
private sufferings. Thus the rude blow which the robbei 
bestows with one hand diverts the attention for a moment from 
the theft he is committing with the other. 

But corruption is by no means the only remarkable character- 
istic of the party in power. Out of the very ruin its measures 
have brought upon the country, does it contrive to extract 
political capital. With unblushing effrontery, its partisans 
assert that it is not accountable for the results of its own action ; 
that the distresses of the country have been produced by the 
operation of Whig principles, and all the responsibihty lies at 
the doors of the opposition. The unfortunate patient, who, 
from a state of perfect health Las been reduced by the nostrums 
of the quack to the point of death, is gravely told by the igno- 
rant pretender that his wretched condition is not owing to the 
nauseous doses he has taken, but is entirely attributable to his 
former physician, whose prescription he has discarded for years. 
A grosser insult was never offered to the good sense of an intel- 
ligent people. 

The party in power is solely responsible for the sufferings 
under which the country is still laboring. Its mad and licentious 

VOL. II. 6* 




130 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

schemes destroyed the best currency in the world, and gave us, 
instead, the present bloated, miserable system, whose sickly and 
convulsive action impedes every step of enterprise, and paralyzes 
the hand of industry. One of those schemes has been a syste- 
matic and diabolical attempt to destroy all confidence, public or 
private. The vilest slanders against the institutions and capa- 
cities of the country have been everywhere promulgated, until 
the eye of distrustful suspicion is glaring with baneful influence 
over the whole land. Credit, the child of confidence and the 
nurse of enterprise, has shared the fate of its parent. The 
currents of business have been rudely diverted, and now creep 
lazily along through choked and tortuous channels. 

During the existence of a United States Bank, the mixed cur- 
rency of paper and precious metals performed to admiration all 
its appropriate functions. At present, it is totally inadequate to 
the fulfilhneut of its duty as a medium of domestic commerce, or 
for the transaction of the most ordinary afluirs (*f business. 

When Gen. Jackson determined upon the destruction of that 
Bank, he did not, nor did his partisans then, deny that it afforded 
a sound circulating medium, and constituted a cheap and efficient 
channel through which to conduct the exchanges of tlie country. 
He promised, however, that all these functions would be as well 
fulfilled by the State Banks, which he said were entirely ade- 
quate to that purpose. He proposed to dispense with this great 
■wheel, on the express ground that it added neither power nor 
certainty to the machine — that the system was perfect without 
it. Experience has exposed what reason strove in vain to do, 
the utter fallacy of Gen. Jackson's view on this subject. It was 
always strenuously opposed by the Whigs, and is at length 
entirely abandoned by the other party. The Whigs predicted, 
that in the absence of a National Bank, each State would endea- 
vor, through its own inc(;rporations, to seize the largest control 
of the currency ; that thus a great number of weak and jealous 
systems w^oukl be thrown in rude collision; and the common 
good of the people entirely lost sight of, in the clashing interests 
of a thousand institutions, mutually hostile to each other, inca« 
pable of aggregate action, and individually incompetent for any 
but local purposes. 



c 



LETTER TO WHIGS OF MADISON COUNTY. 131 

Our predictions have been verified to the letter. So far, the 
State Bank system has proved a failure. All now admit ita 
total incompetency, under its present organization and mode of 
operation, for furnishing a sound and uniform currency, or for 
carrying on the exchanges of the country. 

But its original advocates as a national system, instead of 
honestly acknowledging their error, and returning with us to 
that excellent path, from whence in an evil hour they strayed, 
with their characteristic modesty deny that they ever advocated 
the system, and not only repudiate their own paternity, but 
boldly lay their illegitimate offspring at the door of the Whigs, 

In other countries ministers are responsible for measures, and 
upon their success depends the stability of the administration. — 
Here, it seems, those out of power are held amenable for the 
malpractices and failures of those who wield it; and we are 
charged not only with their unwise acts, but with their worn 
out and discarded opinions. At all events, both parties acknow- 
ledge the inefficiency of the present system, and the necessity of 
a change. The party in power clearly indicates its intention to 
wage a war of extermination against its old allies the State Banks, 
and aims at the establishment upon their ruins of the sub- 
treasury system. In our own State this is openly avowed. 
Taking advantage of the well-founded indignation of the people 
against the miserable system, which they themselves fostered 
into existence, and which is now pressing like an incubus upon 
the State, the friends of the Administration have long since 
commenced a fierce crusade against all sorts of banking. State or 
National. All bank paper currency is repudiated by them, and 
banks, no matter how honestly conducted, denounced in the most 
unmeasured terms, not only as anti-republican, but also, in the 
language of one of their distinguished leaders, as aiming, " a fatal 
blow at private morality and at public virtue, and as a conse- 
quence, destructive of all pure and sincere religion." 

On the other hand, the Whigs are desirous of reforming^ not of 
destroying^ the paper money system. They believe the plan of 
an exclusive gold and silver currency, not only absurd, but in 
this country impracticable. They advocate a mixed currency of 



132 



MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 



coin, and bank paper convertible into coin at the will of the 
holder. They believe the present State Bank system incapable 
of producing such a result ; but in conjunction with a United 
States Bank, tliey know its entire competency for the purpose. 

The Whigs are therefore in favor of establishing- a National 
Bank, independent of executive influence, but under strict 
accountability to the representatives of the people. They are in 
favor of such an institution, simply because they see no other 
mode of attaining their object, which is a sound and uniform 
curfency. 

The sub-treasury scheme which is set up as the antagonist of 
a United States Bank, does not even propose to produce such a 
result, but modestly assumes its sole function to be, the collec- 
tion and disbursement of the public revenues. 

If this be the extent of the measure, its adoption by no means 
dispenses with the necessity of a National Bank, for the collec- 
tion and disbursement of the revenues would constitute but a 
small portion of the functions of such an institution. If, on the 
other hand, it is intended, as it doubtless is, that the sub-treasury 
sliall furnish a paper currency, in tlie shape of its drafts and 
checks, then it will constitute, to all intents and purposes, a 
Government Bank, under the control of the executive ; what 
the "Whigs, of all things, most fear and abhor. 

I am therefore opposed to the sub-treasury scheme, not only 
on account of its intrinsic and essential defects as a financial 
system, but also because it proposes, in its selfish policy, to protect 
the government and not the people, and professes to confine its 
benefits entirely to the former. 

I believe the people of the United States require, and are 
entitled from some source, to a good, sound and convenient 
currency. I do not believe gold and silver alone can furnish 
it. I do not believe the State Banks alone can furnish it. I do 
believe the object can be accomplished by the charter of a 
National Bank, and that Congress has the constitutional power 
to grant such a charter. Sooner or later the people will compel 
them to do it. The present system of things cannot be submitted 
to much longer. Tirades against banks and credit, may for a 



LETTER TO WHIGS OF MADISON COUNTY. 133 

moment tickle the ear, but tliey afford no relief to the sufferings 
of an outraged and betrayed community. The people have been 
waiting long enough for relief from the measures of the dominant 
party. They are now looking in another quarter. They demand 
some better argument against a National Bank than the pious 
apprehensions of the advocates of the sub-treasury ; and a better 
model for the conduct of their affairs, than the Island of Giiba^ 
that colonial vassal of the worst governed nation on earth. 

It is in vain to talk, even if the thing were desirable, of 
eradicating all the State Banks ; it could be effected only by a 
surrender, on the part of all the States, of the power to charter 
such institutions. To suppose tliis surrender will be made, is 
absurd. Even should it, the present generation could not attain 
the proposed object. The larger portion of the banks now in 
existence in the United States are protected by the sanctity of 
contract and shielded by the strong arm of the Constitution. 
A majority of them cannot be got rid of without their own 
consent, unless the people see fit to follow the advice of certain 
desperate partisans of the Administration, and suppress them by 
physical force. 

I do not apprehend that my countrymen will follow such 
wicked counsel. I take it then for granted, that in some shape 
or other, the banking system will continue to exist, at least 
during our generation. This being the case, the refusal to 
establish a National Bank will not relieve the country from the 
curse, as some are pleased to term it, of a paper currency. All 
the evils which can possibly be predicated of a National Bank, 
with many more, are likely to result from ilie present system, 
while the latter is incapable of affording, but in a very small 
degree, the facilities and advantages of the former. 

The most frequently urged, and most popular objection to a 
National Bank, is that which is deduced from its power. It is 
said, that a Mammoth Institution of this sort, with a capital 
of fifty millions, would be able not only to control the 
currency, but through that, to regulate by its expansions and 
contractions, the prices both of labor and property ; that thus 
t;he whole community would be involved in its meshes, and so it 



134 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

would prove at the same time clangerons to the government, 
and fatal to the liberties of the people. But, though the experi- 
ence of the past ought to quiet all honest apprehensions of this 
sort, yet even supposing them reasonable, I would ask, are not 
the same dangers more imminent under the present system? 
The State Banks now present the spectacle of a large number of 
petty independent chiefs, waging war upon each other. The 
stronger overcome the weaker, and the contest goes on until 
some one wiser and more powerful than the rest, reduces all to 
subjection, and rules over them with despotic sway. The State 
Banks even now are weary of the ruinous strife, and anxious to 
place themselves under the protection of some institution suffi- 
ciently powerful to sustain them. Many have already sworn 
allegiance to the great Bank of Pennsylvania. -Others are ready 
to follow the example ; but the greater portion are anxiously 
• awaiting the final determination of the people, whether they 
shall submit to the control of a National or a mere State institu- 
tion. Around the former they would all rally, and acting with 
confidence and concert, the immediate result would be a sound 
and uniform currency, and a restored and healthy credit. It is 
worthy of observation, that some of the very States, which 
object to the chartering by Congress of a. National Bank, lest it 
should prove too powerful for the country, very modestly propose 
to charter similar institutions at home for the purpose of affording 
a currency, not only for themselves, but for their neighbors. 
This has been already accomplished by Pennsylvania. Her 
Mammoth Institution is in full operation, beyond our reach or 
control, and }et rith all the capacity for evil that could be 
attributed to a National Bank by its most bitter opponent. Its 
issues, at this very moment, command a premium in this State 
over gold and silver. Our exchanges, such as they are, are 
principally under its control. What could prevent this institu- 
tion, with her immense credit and capital, from saturating the 
whole country, if she pleased, with her issues ? she could emit 
her hundreds of millions, and it would all be grasped at; she 
could then contract this unnatural expansion, call in the paper, 
and, according to the argument of those opposed to a National 



LETTER TO WHIGS OF MADISON COUNTY. 135 

Bank, purchase at half price from a bankrupt community the 
property of the country. If such a power must exist, let it he 
under the control and supervision of the whole people, and not 
of a single State. But this is the beginning only. Other States, 
emulous of this power, are preparing to struggle for a share in it. 
Look at the great South Carolina Railroad Bank, already 
chartered in several States, and determined, no doubt, to seize 
*^he control and regulation of the currency of the South. 

Look at the idea, long since thrown out, and now ripe for 
action, of a fifty million bank in the city of New York. Is not 
the currency of Mississippi already at the mercy of other States ? 
Shall we continue to groan under this degrading vassalage 
Which will Mississippi prefer as the regulator of her currency 
and exchanges, a bank chartered by a single State, in the 
construction and limitations of which she has no voice, and in 
the supervision and control of which she has no power; or one 
chartered by Congress, in every provision of which her voice 
will be heard, in every limitation her suggestions considered, 
and over the conduct and operations of which she will in common 
with the other States, exercise a continual supervision and 
control ? The question now submitted to the people is, whether 
the currency of the country shall be restored and regulated 
through the action of the representatives of all the States, or by 
the legislrftion and moneyed power of a single State ? I regret that 
the limits of this communication will not permit me to enter 
more at large upon this view of the financial question ; I trust, 
however, I have thrown out suflficient hints on the subject to 
attract attention, and to constitute a starting point for reflection. 
But I have already exceeded the boundaries I had prescribed. 
If the people shall see fit, through their representatives, to 
elevate me to the high and arduous station towards which your 
kind wishes have pointed, I can only say that for the fidelity 
of my future service, I offer them the guaranty of the past. To 
my fellow citizens of Madison whom you represent, as well as to 
the Whigs of other sections of the State who have honored me 
with their unexpected and unsought confidence, allow me to 
express my most sincere and grateful acknowledgments. That 



136 



MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 



I may ever prove worthy of their good opinion is my highest 
desire ; that I may be able, in even the smallest degree, to 
advance our common principles, is my sole ambition. To your- 
selves, gentlemen, permit me to present my thanks, together 
with my best wishes for your individual prosperity. 

Very respectfully. 

Your obd't servant, 

S. S. Prentiss. 
To Messrs. 
T. J. Oatchings, 
J. H. Rollins, 
0. C. Shackelford, 
Jno. Montgomery, 
Wm. W. Hatden. 



Committee. 



The following letter from one of Mr. Prentiss' most 
honored and admired friends, then a United States Senator 
from Kentucky, will show the interest felt in this election, 
beyond the bounds of Mississippi : — 

Fbankfobt, Sept. 1, 1889. 

Mr Dear Sir: — 

In a Vicksburg ncAvspaper sent me by sopie friend, 
I read yesterday your reply to the public calls made upon you 
to become a candidate for the Senate of the United States. 

I rejoice at the conclusion to which you have come, and have 
enjoyed a proud and high satisfaction in the eloquent, manly, 
and masterly style and tone of your response. 

Peculiar circumstances marked your entrance into Congress, 
and contributed to make you at once an object of distin- 
guished interest and attention to the whole nation. In Congress, 
for the brief period of your service, you did more than sus- 
tain the high expectations of the public, and your retirement has 
continued to be regarded as a misfortune to the country. And, 
moreover, it has been considered as involving in its conse- 
quences, the loss of your State to the "Whig cause. 

The opinion prevails, almost universally among the Whigs, 



LETTER FROM MR. CRITTENDEN. 137 

that the course of Mississippi depends on you.. A great exi- 
gency has arisen, and you are recalled to the field of action, for 
a struggle full of consequence to yourself and to the country. 
Mississippi, of all the States, votes last for members to the House 
of Representatives, and it is quite probable that it may depend 
on her vote whether the Whigs shall have a majority or not, 
in that body. If they can have it at all without you, it must 
be a bare precarious majority, liable to be prostrated at any 
time, by the weakness, timidity, or venality of any two or three 
of its members. It is not necessary to exaggerate the impor- 
tance of the crisis. The fate of this Administration, in all 
human probability, will be determined by the Whigs having a 
majority in the next House of Representatives, — an eflicient 
majority. That depends on the course of Mississippi, and the 
course of Mississippi depends on you and your exertions ; 
so, at least, it is confidently believed by the country. And that 
belief fixes your position, and elevates you to a station of 
exalted, perilous, honorable reponsibility. Circumstances have 
placed you there, and you cannot avoid it — you have no escape 
but by victory. If the difficulty, the labor, the peril of the 
contest, are great, great will be the honors of the victory. And 
they will be all your own. The people have awarded them 
to you, in advance. If the Whigs are defeated in your State, 
the country will say, " Peentiss could have prevented this " ; — 
if they are successful, the country will say, " Peentiss has done 
this." This I tell you as the state of public opinion, and such 
will be its sentence. I do not wish to flatter you, but as a friend, 
speaking from his convictions, who would warn you of your 
true position, and its high responsibifity. You may consider it 
a hard lot — a hard lot, to be called from the enjoyment of the 
political fame you have already won, to new and arduous strug- 
gles in the public cause. In some respects, it is a hard lot, but 
in others it is an enviable one, "worth ten years of peaceful 
life." It is no common, vulgar, political strife, to which you are 
called, but a great occasion for patriotic devotion and sacrifice. 
It is in this point of view that you, I am. sure, have regarded 
it, and it is in that view that the subject is exactly calculated to 
stir up the spirit that is in you. 



138 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

Tlie Administration knows that it stands on the brink of 
destruction. It knows the importance of your State to its 
cause; and it will put forth all its means, all its patronage, 
all its influence, to carry your elections. You will have to com- 
bat all this, and to guard against all possible tricks and frauds 
that can be practised by its adherents. The odds are fearful 
against you, but the more will be the joy and honor of the 
victory. You must gird up your loins as for a great battle. 
You will have to go forth from county to county, filling up the 
hearts of your friends with your own enthusiasm, and persuad- 
ing your enemies to their own good. Consider it, if you 
please, as the last of your battles, but make it memorable as 
such. 

I declare to you, that I do not feel more concern about the 
public importance of your elections, than I do about their 
personal consequences to you. How I shall like to hail you 
as victor in that contest ! 

Pardon me for troubling you with this long letter. I could 
not restrain myself from writing you. May all good spirits 
tend on you, and guide you to success. 

Your Friend, 

J. J. Ceittexden. 

P. S. — If you have leisure, write me a line; but I had 
rather know that your activity in the cause, was such as not 
to leave you a single moment for any such purpose. 

J. J. 0. 

S. S. Peentiss, Esq. 

A gentleman of political note writes him about the same 
time ■ from Philadelphia : — " Your retirement has pro- 
duced universal regret in this quarter of the Union, Yoa 
cannot dream, even in your most enthusiastic moments, of a 
tithe of the reputation you enjoy here for eloquence and 
patriotism. If you were in the field, no one would doubt 
for a moment of the success of the Whigs of Mississippi. 
Can you not, as it is, take the stump and urge forward the 
good cause ?" 



SENATORIAL CANVASS. 139 

But, notwithstanding such appeals as these, and notwith- 
standing the enthusiasm with which the nomination was 
hailed, his letters show plainly that his heart was not in the 
work. Still he conducted the canvass with great vigor, 
though under serious disadvantages, growing out of the 
pressure of his private business. Wherever he went, he 
was received with all the honors of a prince ; Whigs and 
Democrats, men and women, alike flocked to see and hear 
him. His speeches were exceedingly <ible and impressive, 
full of political thought, observation, and keen, caustic 
wit ; but there was no malice in them. 

"• My warfare with the Hon. Senator," he said in reference 
to his opponent, " is purely political and shall be conducted 
on ray part with legitimate weapons ; no poisoned shaft has or 
ever shall fly from my bow. Politically I make war upon him 
to the utmost of my strength, because I believe his present 
principles are pernicious, and tend to the ruin of the country. 
Personally, as he well knows, I have never entertained towards 
him other than kind and friendly sentiments." 

In the letter from which the above is taken, he thus 
refers to the renewed charge that at the dinner to Mr. 
Webster in Faneuil Hall, he had expressed too much 
respect for the talents and public services of that eminent 
statesman : — 

As an American citizen, who has rendered himself illus- 
trious, and added character to his country and his race, T am 
proud of Mr. Webster. I sincerely pity that littleness of bouI, 
which will not do justice even to the merits of an enemy, 
and which looks with bitter envy upon the greatness it cannot 
reach. I know Mr. Webster's name is unpopular in this State, 
and I have already said that as a politician I differ from him 
in many things radically ; yet let me tell the Hon. Senator 



140 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

that Mr. Webster's name will be prominent in the history of 
distinguished Americans, long after the honorable Senator and 
myself shall find a registry only on the scroll of oblivion. 

The following passage of the same letter, deserves to be 
quoted : — 

Our present banking system is bad, but that shall not pre- 
vent me from advocating a good one. I do not choose 
because men somelimes die of depletion, or are choked by their 
food, on that account to abstain from eating. Steamboats fre- 
quently blow up, yet I choose to travel on them in preference 
to going a foot. 

The Hon. Senator quotes the sentiments expressed in 
ray letter to the Whigs of Madison county, where I speak of 
the larger portion of the banks of the United States as protected 
by the sanctity of contract, and calls them ' anti-republican and 
anti-constitutional.' My jji-opositiou is, that the larger portion 
of the banks in the United States cannot be got rid of without 
their own consent, because they are protected by the Consti- 
tution. In most of the States those w^hich have forfeited their 
charters, have had them restored, and of course will be sus- 
tained in their rights by the courts. I consider a bank charter 
a contract, and hold the Legislature bound by by it, until it is 
surrendered or forfeited ; and on the question of forfeiture it is 
the Y>rovince of the judicial and not the legislative depart- 
ment to decide. I deny the right of -the Legislature to abro- 
gate at their pleasure, the charters granted by previous Legis- 
latures. I understand the Hon. Senator to advance the doc- 
trine, that whenever the Legislasure thinks that a bank is 
not of as much service to the public as was anticipated at its 
creation, it has a right to abrogate and repeal its charter. 
Now, if this he his opinion, he is more radical and destruc- 
tive than I had ever thought him. The proposition tliat 
the Legislature can repeal and take away charters with- 
out the intervention of the Judiciary, is, to my mind, a 
doctrine the most mischievous and dangerous that can be 



SENATORIAL CANVASS. 141 

imagined ; it strikes at the very root of our system of Govern- 
ment. With regard to the banks of this State, I think it pro- 
bable that most of them have forfeited their charters ; — if so, 
let the proper proceedings take place against them, through 
the courts of the country, and then we shall get rid of a 
great evil, without violating the first principles of our social 
system. 

Had the choice of Senator been made by direct vote of 
the people, he would, perhaps, have been chosen. "There 
never was a time," says Mr. Word, " during Mr. Pren- 
tiss' residence in Mississippi, when he could not, in my 
opinion, have carried the popular vote of the State." But 
the election turned upon the political complexion of the 
Legislature, and as — owing in part to local divisions among 
the Whigs, and the running of double tickets — a majority 
of that body were Democrats, Mr. Walker was rechosen 
Senator. It was, no doubt, a most fortunate result for Mr. 
Prentiss in every point of view, and he himself as will appear 
from his letters, so regarded it. His private affairs were 
already sufficiently entangled ; six years more of political 
life would have been his utter ruin. And yet what a noble 
theatre would the Senate of the United States have 
afforded for the exercise of his splendid abilities ! How 
would he have shone there among the intellectual magnates 
of the land 1 He once told me, that in the event of his 
election, he had resolved to make the development of a 
broader and deeper sentiment of nationality the special 
object of his senatorial career. Yarious causes, theoretical 
and practical, of domestic and foreign growth, were in 
operation, as he believed, to injure the tone and mar tJie 
integrity of this fundamental sentiment — a sentiment upon 
which reposes, in no small degree, the majestic structure 
of our Free Institutions. He deemed it, therefore, a 
prunary duty of an American statesman, to foster the 



142 MEMOIR OF S. S. TRENTISS. 

ancestral spirit of the nation ; to invigorate the old amor 
patrice ; to cultivate mutual good will among the different 
sections of the Union, and, in every possible way, to 
strengthen the bonds of love and fidelity to the whole 
country. He thought that unless those moral feelings 
which bind a people together, and make them of the same 
mind and of one spirit — such as brotherly kindness, charity, 
and loyal patriotic self-devotion — were cherished among us 
with especial care, the anti-national tendencies, already 
referred to, were likely in the end to bring disaster and 
wreck upon the Republic. One cannot resist the wish that 
he had enjoyed the opportunity of setting forth his views 
on this great subject, in the presence of the Nation. With 
what manly eloquence and genial fervid emotion he would 
have done it ! Sed aliter dis visum. 
We uow return to his correspondence : 

TO HIS MO THEK. 

ViCKSBCRG, August 6, 1839. 

My Deae Mother: — 

I have been absent the last three or four weeks, 
and was very much gratified on m}^ return to find your kind 
letter. It is a long while since you wrote me, and therefore I 
was more pleased than if it had been from one of the girls ; 
though it is, I need not say, one of my greatest pleasures to re- 
ceive their kind epistles. I have been to ITew Orleans, whither 
I was called on business, and from thence went across the lake 
to a place upon the Gulf of Mexico, called Pass Christian — a 
place much resorted to in the summer, and very pleasant. I 
enjoyed myself much this little trip — though I suftered exceed- 
ingly from the heat, which has been this summer more oppres- 
sive than I have ever before known it. Since my return, I find 
the "Whigs have been holding public meetings throughout the 
State, and have determined to run me as a candidate for the 
United States Senate, in place of Mr. "Walker, the present mem- 



LETTERS. 143 

ber. You know I had resolved to have nothing further to do with 
politics; but so strong have been the soHcitations addressed 
to rae, that I have been compelled to consent. The election 
takes place this winter, and I think the chances about equal. 
If not elected, I shall feel no disappointment, for I have 
seen as much of public life as I wish. If elected, it will 
certainly be a very high honor, and one which seldom falls 
upon a person of my age. The term of service is six years. 
The whole movement has been very unexpected to me. I 
see by the Portland papers, that Judge Guion and family 
have arrived, and are, of course, now with you, I hope 
they will have a pleasant time, and that Mrs. G.'s health 
will be improved by the journey. I cannot possibly hear 
anything against Anna's returning with them. I have set 
my heart upon it, and would not it should fall through on any 
account. I have the strongest confidence, that a winter here 
will have the most beneficial effect upon her health ; and 
besides, I cannot think of losing the pleasure which I expect to 
to derive from -her society. 

I suppose you have heard from George by this time. I am in 
expectation of letters from liim by the Great "Western, which I 
perceive has arrived in New York, and must have left England 
after his arrival there. I see by a letter of Judge G.'s, from 
New York, that W. was to accompany him to Portland. 
You will have quite a family this summer, though it will be 
sufficiently pleasant to compensate for the trouble. I was very 
much gratified that you and Abby had such a pleasant trip to 
Brunswick, and enjoyed yourselves so mucli while there. As 
travelling seems to agree with you so well, you should try it 
oftener than you have done. Next summer I expect to make you 
a good long visit, and we must think of some excursions to take 
then. Notwithstanding the extreme warmth of the weather, the 
health of Vicksburg, and indeed of the whole country, is excel- 
lent. Tell Judge Guion that all things are well here, and 
that I shall write him in a day or two. My love tc you all. 

Your affectionate son, 

Seargent. 



14i 



MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 



TO HIS SISTER ABBY. 



ViOKSBUBG, Sept. 15, 1889. 

My Dear Sister : — 

I have received your letter of the 18th ult, and 
as I have been rather negligent of late, v^ill try to redeem myself 
by answering it immediately. The fact is, I have been very 
little at home this summer, and have had so much business to 
distract my attention, that I have had, frequently, to postpone 
for weeks my intention of writing. But though I have been 
somewhat negligent in this respect, yet not a day passes in which 
you do not all occupy much of my thoughts, and contribute 
largely to ray happiness. Indeed, I can say truly that my inter- 
course with the world, and the active duties which it has 
imposed upon me, so far from diminishing, have every day 
increased my love and attachment for our little family circle. I 
hope the day is not far distant when I shall be able to express it 
in person, and not by mere scribbling. I am tired of this kind 
of life, and long to quit it. Yet I am now engaged in an excit- 
ing political contest, am a candidate for the United States Senate, 
and have been, for several we^ks, attending public dinners, bar- 
bacues, &c. «&c. — making speeches, and laboring, as for dear life, 
in a matter in which, personally, I feel no interest whatever. I 
do not want to go to the Senate ; it will break up all my 
plans of life, and compel me to pursue a vocation which I 
almost detest. I have consented to run only from a sense of 
duty. 

The Whig party in this State have called upon me, with 
almost unexampled enthusiasm, to assist them in the contest, and 
I could not conscientiouJy refuse. I have received the kindest 
personal treatment, not only from them, but from my pohtical 
opponents. There is nothing personally unpleasant in the 
matter, but I am disgusted with politics, and annoyed at the 
notoriety which has attaclied to my name. Fortunately, there 
is a very good chance of my being beaten, and though I shall do 
my utmost to prevent it, yet I shall, I believe, feel gratified if it 
happens. You may laugh at this, but it is true. For ray poll- 



I 



LETTERS. Ii5 

tical friends, I shall do everything in my power ; and for my 
political principles I am willing to make any sacrifice ; but if, 
after all this, I am defeated, I do not doubt it will add to our 
mutual happiness by enabling me to withdraw for ever from 
politics. So, if you hear of my defeat, do not regret it, but 
congratulate me and yourselves upon it as a fortunate result. So 
much for politics. Now for more interesting matters. I am 
beginning to expect the arrival of Anna, with Judge G. and 
family. I understand they are in Lexington, Ky. ; though I 
have not heard a word from them directly since they left Port- 
land. But I have seen several gentlemen who have met them, 
and report they are all in good health. You cannot conceive 
how much pleasure I expect to derive from A.'s society this 
winter. Every moment I can spare from business I shall devote 
to her comfort and happiness ; and I hope to return her in the 
spring improved in health, and without regret that she has 
yielded to my solicitations to visit this distant country. You 
and mother must not entertain the slightest apprehensions on 
her account, for I should deem it an imputation upon me. She 
will be under the pro,tection of a brother who loves his sisters 
better than he does himself. I will be mother, sister, and 
brother to her. You shall hear from me a true account of her 
health, and everything of interest in relation to her journey and 
visit. I am in good health, though .annoyed almost to death 
by business and politics. You mention that you have received 
no answer fi'om me to mother's letter. It is strange ; I received 
her kind and affectionate letter, and answered it immediately. 
If it has not been received, it must have miscarried. I will 
write again, so soon as Anna arrives, which I hope will 
be in a few days. I have had two letters from Q-., long 
and interesting. He is enjoying himself much. My love to 
you aU. I am afraid you and mother will be lonesome this 
winter ; but you mustn't get low spirited. We shall be all with 
you next summer. 

Tour affectionate brother, 

S. S. PfiBNTISfl. 
VOL. II. t 



148 MEMOIR OP S. S. PKENTISS. 

TO HIS TOUNGEST BEOTHEE. 

ViCKSBURG, Sept. 25, 1839. 

Dear Geoege: — 

I am afraid you will complain of my neglect during 
the summer ; but the fact is, I have been absent most of the 
time, and besides, did not know where a letter would reach you. 
I w^rote once, soon after you left, directing to London. I 
received, a few days since, yours of the 19th of July, upon the 
eve of your leaving London for Berlin. I thank you very heart- 
ily for your epistle. It was a good long one, and gratified me 
much. Your own feelings and opinions in regard to men and 
things are much more desired by me than the mere descriptions 
of others. You are pursuing the right plan, not only for my 
gratification, but for your own improvement. Nothing is more 
useful to a young man than the expression of his opinions, fresh 
as they arise. It gives an independence of thought, which 
cannot be attained, except by the habit of frequent expression, 
either in conversation or writing. I was very much pleased with 
your description of the distinguished men of Parliament and of 
the pen whom you had the opportunity of hearing. I am 
inclined to agree with you in relation to Brougham. He has 
too much versatility of talent for my idea of a man who is to 
become the land-mark of his age. This may seem paradoxical, 
but the chronicles of the past will show that most men who 
have made an indelible impression upon the race, have con- 
centrated their energies, and confined them in a single chan- 
nel. Diffusion weakens no less in mental than in physical 
power. " Tlie Admirable Orichton " could not have become 
a l^apoleon, a Milton, or a Shakespeare. Lord Brougham 
is too much of an Admirable Crichton for my taste. I am 
afraid your visit to England has made you aristocratic, from the 
way you talk of the Government of the little Queen, and of the 
Reformers. However, I do not pretend to judge of the correct- 
ness of your criticism on the latter. Most reformers in politics 
are actuated by selfish motives, and, as a class, I have little con- 
fidence in them. Substantial improvement is generally of slow 



LETTERS. 147 

growth, both in morals and physics, wliile what is commonly 
called Reform, attempts to attain its object suddenly and with 
out regard to consequences. But you will probably prefer 
hearing something more about me than my abstractions. I am 
now one of the most practical and busiest of men. I am engaged 
in building extensively upon my property in town, have my 
attention occupied by a large amount of private and professional 
business, and, in addition to all this, am a candidate for the 
United States Senate, at the election which takes place this 
winter. You will, doubtless, be surprised at this latter piece of 
information, as I had, publicly as well as privately, announced 
my determination not to re-engage in political strife. I have 
been compelled, sorely against my inclinations, to forego this 
determination. The Whigs of the State held public meetings in 
almost every county, calling upon me to permit my name to be 
run. So universal was the expression of ray poHtical friends, that 
I felt it a clear matter of duty to accede to their wishes. I am 
accordingly in the field, and busily engaged in the various 
responsibilities of a political leader. I have been invited to 
many public dinners and barbacues, which I attend when prac- 
ticable, and address the people. My opponent, Mr. Walker, has 
made no speeches as yet, but he writes letters as long as the 
Mediterranean. The contest is doubtful, though I think my 
chance of success the best. I shall feel no cliagrin at defeat, for 
success will disturb my entire plans of life. Should I be elected 
Senator, I should feel bound to devote my whole time to prepa- 
ration for the performance of the dignified and arduous duties 
which belong to that high station. Of course, my election will 
involve an immediate abandonment of my profession, and a great 
pecuniary sacrifice. My private affairs, however, are getting 
into a good condition, and before my time of service would 
commence, I shall, without some unforeseen occurrence, be in 
receipt of an income from my property amply sufficient for us 
all. Indeed, had this not been the case, ^ should have refused 
the solicitations of my friends ; still, my profession is so lucra- 
tive that I think it almost wrong to abanaon it. The general 
state of things is very bad in this country ; money still continues 



148 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

scarce, more so, I think, than I have ever known it. The banks 
are all broken, and a large portion of the people with them. 
Vicksburg is improving in spite of all this, and its prospects are 
decidedly better. With the exception of the temporary incon- 
venience, I am, perhaps, as little injured as any other man by 
the hard times. It has procrastinated, but, I believe, not mate- 
rially diminished, my pecuniary prospects. Judge Guion has 
not come home yet, but I am in daily expectation of his arrival. 
Anna is with him, and I anticipate from her vsociety this winter 
a higher degree of enjoyment than I have yet known in this 
country. I have no doubt the trip will be of vast service to her, 
and I need not assure you that she will receive all the affectionate 
treatment which her delicate state of health demands, and 
which is due to so beloved a sister. The health of Vicksburg 
has been and is most excellent, so that I am very anxious for her 
early arrival. From home you have no doubt had later infor- 
mation than I can furnish. When I last heard, they were all 
well. Mother and Abby, however, will have a very lonesome 
winter of it, and I shall often wish myself there to cheer them 
for a passing hour. I suppose you have located (that is a good 
American, if not English word) yourself by this time. I do not 
wish to impose any task on you, but you must continue to write 
me as often and as fully as other engagements will permit ; and 
if you do not receive letters from me as often as you may expect, 
attribute it to anything but forgetfulness or want of interest. 
That you may reap in pleasure and improvement the fruition 
of your fondest wishes, is the desire of 

Your affectionate brother, 

Se ARGENT. 



liKTTKRS. 149 



CHAPTER XYIII. 

Letters — Presidential Election of 1S40 — Letters — Mr. Prentiss' Exertions — Visits 
the North — Invitations to attend Whig Conventions and Mass-Meetings — 
Speeches at Portland and Newarlc — Anxiety to hear him — Returns Home by 
Sea — Canvasses Mississippi as Candidate for Presidential Elector — Letters. 

^T. 31. 1840. 

One of the most auspicious events in Mr. Prentiss' 
life was the visit of his younger sister, referred to in the 
preceding and following letters. How it soothed his morbid 
impulses, solaced his loneliness, and paved the way for still 
happier results, the reader himself, as he goes on, can hardly 
•fail to see. 

TO HIS YOUNGEST BROTHER. 

ViCKSBURQ, Jan. 18, 1840. 

Dear George : — 

I acknowledge I have treated you badly. I have 
written you but twice since your departure. The fact is, I 
exhausted myself so much, both mentally and physically, during 
my political campaign in the summer and autumn, that, since ray 
return, I have absolutely been wanting in energy sufficient for the 
transaction of the most ordinary business. At the same time, my 
business, both private and professional, has been more weighty 
and pressing than ever heretofore. I am, however, recovering 
my tone and elasticity, and have relieved myself from the 
pressure of my aflPairs. My exertions in traversing the State 
were greater than on any previous occasion, and I was not aware, 



100 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

until my return, how severely I had tasked my energies. I had 
rather make a campaign in Florida than again undergo the 
same fatigue. I have just returned from ITatchez, where I left 
Anna, in fine health and spirits, enjoying herself much among 
my friends, who are extending to her great kindness and atten- 
tion. She will spend several weeks there. I have to be at 
Jackson during the next month, in attendance upon the Courts, 
and I preferred that she should spend the period of my absence 
at Natchez. She looks exceedingly well, and is enjoying herself 
greatly. Our climate, though much more inclement than I have 
ever known it, seems to act upon her with the most salutary 
influence, and I feel the strongest hope of taking her home in 
the spring entirely restored to health. She wrote you a long 
letter a few days since, by which, I presume, she has rendered 
it unnecessary for me to enter into particulars in relation to 
her occupations, associations, and feelings. Her presence has 
been a source of great gratification to me, and I anticipate still 
more from our journey home in the spring. I have not decided 
positively as to the route, but we liave talked of going to St. 
Louis, thence across Illinois to Chicago, down the lakes to 
Niagara Falls, &c. This is said to be a most delightful route in 
the spring season. I do not know what time I shall start, but it 
will necessarily be late. Of the folks at home you have probably 
heard since I have, for our mails are in such infamous condition, 
that I seldom get a letter in less than six weeks or two months. 
I have nothing new in the way of general affairs. You have, 
doubtless, heard of Harrison's nomination for the Presidency, 
instead of Clay. In this I was disappointed and somewhat 
mortified.* However, I am inclined to think, that Harrison 



* Gen. Harrison's nomination was very unpalatable to many of the Southern 
Whigs. A leading member of the party in Mississippi, writes to Mr. Prektiss, 
under date of January 12, 1S40 :— " With regard to the Presidential election, what 
are we to do ? I am greivously disappointed at the result of the Convention, and 
the Whigs here generally are dissatisfied. What are we to do ? Can we rally with 
spirit under the banner of Harrison ? I fear we cannot. Will he get a vote south 
of the Potomac? Will Tyler even secure Virginia? At any rate the Whigs here 
think it little short of the back track; and I am sure there is no one can infuse 
into them any spirit or enthusiasm except yourself. Many of them speak oS 



LETTERS. 151 

has a better chance of election than Clay would have had. StilL 
I think his chance a small one. The spoils-party will, in all 
probability, succeed. I have lost confidence in the people— not 
so much in their honesty as their capacity. The principle of 
democracy is rapidly destroying and eating out all the principles 
of the Kepublic. Indeed, practically, the Eepublic no longer 
exists. It ceased under General Jackson. In a Republic, the 
rights of all are equally protected. In this government, as now 
administered, the rights of the majority alone are protected. 
We are now Uving under a despotic democracy. But a truce .to 
politics. The last letter I got from you was dated at Halle, 
immediately after your return from Kissingen. I am daily 
expecting another. Pray, do not take example from me, but 
write often. I will try and improve in this matter myself. I 
am well. God bless you. 

Yours affectionately, 

S. S. Peentiss. 



TO THE SAME . 

ViCKSBUBQ, March 80, 1840. 
Deae Geoege : — 

Between absence from home, ill health, and accu- 
mulated business, I have again rendered myself hable to just 
complaint from you. But my remissness has been compensated 
by Anna, who has not failed, I believe, to keep you well 
informed of tlie state of affairs here. I have suffered much the 
last two or three months, not from any particular disease, but 
from general debility, and a consequent indisposition for busi- 

maklng a grace of necessity and quitting the field. * * If anything could 
excite in them any zeal on the subject, it would be, I repeat, a word from you. 
This is not conjecture ; I know it to be true. At the election which immediately 
succeeded your visit to this county, the Whigs, as you have doubtless seen, swept 
all before them. Could you not give us your views in a few lines which I might 
show to some of the leading Whigs, or to all of them through the press? I believe 
It very important."— Ed. 



152 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

ness or exertion of any sort. I am, however, gradually recover- 
ing my elasticity, and trust that soon " Richard will be himself 
again." After I wrote you last, I went to Natchez for Anna, 
and spent some three weeks there very pleasantly. She enjoyed 
her visit exceedingly. Her health has improved far beyond 
ray most sanguine expectations, and if she can retain, on her 
return home, the advantage derived from her visit South, I 
shall felicitate myself much upon my skill as a physician. We 
each received two letters from you by the Great Western, and I 
need not tell you they afforded us much gratification. I rejoice 
that your spirits are so good, and your situation and pursuits so 
agreeable to you. You seem to be diving deep in German 
metaphysics. Be careful that you do not dash your brains out 
on the bottom. The study of metaphysics, when confined to the 
operations of the human mind, is doubtless a noble pursuit — 
perhaps the loftiest of which we are capable — but, to my judg- 
ment, it should not extend beyond the limits of observation and 
experience. He who attempts to analyze the soul, and, as it 
were, by the prism of logic, to resolve it into distinct and sepa- 
rate elements, runs the risk of arriving at the same conclusion 
in regard to mind, to which Bishop Berkeley's reasoning led 
him in relation to matter — to wit, that it has no actual exist- 
ence. It is much easier to prove that mind is but a quality or 
attribute of matter, than that matter has only an ideal existence. 
I have always considered it as impossible for a man to understand 
the organization and structure of his own soul, as to lift him- 
self by the waistband of his own breeclies. I do not feel 
competent to judge of the character of the writings of your 
present favorites. Duns Scotus, Thomas Aquinas, &c. &c. ; but I 
would caution you against wading into metaphysical disquisition 
beyond your depth. It is a dangerous science, and the Gnothi 
Seauton may be carried to such an extent as to destroy the 
capacity for any other sort of knowledge. Metaphysicians are 
seldom fit for the practical affairs of life. However, do not 
understand me as quarrelling with your studies, but merely as 
wishing to impress upon you the importance of studying, pari 
passu^ with the theory, the practice of the mind. Correct the 



LETTERS. 153 

metaphysical abstractions of the scholar by comparison with the 
metaphysical facts developed in history. History is to me the 
great test-book of the philosophy of the human mind. But 
enough of this. I am delighted at your progress in German, and 
trust, in one or two years, to make you my tutor in the jaw- 
breaking tongue. I have the desire and hope to gratify it, 
of visiting Europe, and spending a couple of years in the acqui- 
sition of knowledge, my stock of which is sadly deficient. It 
may be two years before I can accomplish my objects, and wind 
up my affairs in this country. The terrible state of the times 
here throws many obstacles in my way ; but I doubt not my 
ability to surmount them. I shall go home with Anna some 
time in June. I anticipate much pleasure in the trip, and shall 
probably take the route by the way of the lakes, to give her the 
opportunity of beholding the mighty cataract of Niagara. Good 
bye. God bless you. 

Your affectionate brother, 

Seaegent. 



TOHISMOTHEE. 

ViCKSBUEO, June 18, 1840. 

My Deae Mothee : — 

I believe neither Anna nor myself has written for 
some three or four weeks. The reason is, that I have been 
absent on business, and A. has been considerably indisposed 
with an attack of fever, from which, however, she is now 
rapidly recovering, and will, in two or three days, I trust, be 
quite well again. She was taken sick two weeks ago, while 
visiting at Colonel Vick's, and is still there. She had every 
possible attention, and could not have been more kindly treated, 
even at home. I think her illness will prove of great service 
to her, as she was very bihous, and might otherwise have been 
taken ill upon the way home. Now there will be no danger 
of that. I never saw one recover as rapidly as she has 
done the last three or four days, since she became con- 
valescent. Her spirits are very good, and I do not think there 

VOL. II. *l* 



154 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

is any danger of her being sick again this summer. She will be 
ready to start for home in a week, though I fear my business 
will not allow me to leave so soon. I cannot tell precisely when 
I can get off, but it will be between this and the first of July. 
We have not determined upon the route we will take, but shall 
one of us write when we do start, giving you all the informa- 
tion necessary to judge when you may expect us. My health is 
excellent, never better, and I long to leave the annoyances of 
business, with which I have been overwhelmed, for the quiet 
enjoyments of home — for I shall never be able to consider any 
other place as a home to be compared with that where dwell my 
mother and sisters. A. is crazy to start, and will return to 
you all, like a bird to her nest. I think her visit has been of 
great service to her, both in health and feeling. She has been 
much in society, and has been treated everywhere with a kind- 
ness and attention which I never before saw extended to any 
one, certainly not to any stranger. I have a thousand times 
wished that Abby could have been with her to add to and 
participate in her enjoyments. She got a letter from you a day 
or two since, and we were very happy to learn that you were 
all well. Consider the next page full of love. 

From your affectionate son, 

Seaegent. 

The year 1840, will ever be memorable in the political 
history of the United States. It is well depicted by the 
accomplished Legare — himself a prominent actor in its 
' scenes — in the opening of his admirable essay on Demos- 
thenes, first published in 1841. Mr. Legare belonged to 
the Conservative section of the Democratic party : — 

The subject of popular eloquence, always an attractive one 
in free countries, has been invested for us with a more than 
ordinary interest, by the events of the last year. A new era 
seems to have occurred in the development of our democratic 
institutions. There have been congresses of the sovereigns 
in proper person. We have seen multitudes, probably greater 



PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 1840. 155 

tnan any addressed by the ancient masters, brought together 
by means of the steam-engine, from the most distant parts of 
our immense territory, to consult with one another upon the 
state of the nation, and to listen to the counsels of men dis 
tinguished among us for their influence or ability. We have 
seen the best speakers of the country, called for from all parts of 
it, compelled to leave their homes, however remote — some of 
them drawn forth even out of the shades of private life — to 
advise, to instruct, and to animate their fellow citizens, exhaust- 
ing all their resources of invention to supply topics, of strength 
to endure fatigue, of oratory to command attention, and 
even of voice to utter and articulate sound, in order to meet 
the almost incessant demands made upon them by a people 
insatiable after political discussion. It was no one part of the 
country that was thus awakened and agitated ;* the commotion 
was universal ; yet nothing was more remarkable in these stir- 
ring scenes than the order, decorum, and seriousness which in 
general distinguished them. These eager throngs listened like 
men accustomed to inquire for themselves, and to weigh the 
grounds of their opinions. There was to us, we confess, something 
imposing and even majestic in such mighty exhibitions of the 
Democracy. But quiet and patient as these vast popular audiences 
certainly were, to a degree much beyond anything that could have 
been imagined beforehand, their attention was far from being 
uniform and undiscerning. They never once failed to listen to 
the best speech with the deepest silence^ and to award the highest 
honors to the lest speaTcers. We mean the best in the proper, 
critical sense of the word ; for our previous opinions, founded 
"^ upon the experience of other times, have been fully confirmed 
by our own ; that it is impossible to speak too well to a vast and 
promiscuous assembly ; and that it is by qualities which would 
insure success at any time, under a popular government similarly 
circumstanced, that Demosthenes, the most exquisite of writers, 
was the delight, the guide, and tlie glory of the Democracy 
of Athens.* 

♦ WHtinga of Hugh Svnnton Legare. — VoL 1, p. 443. The reader, who desires 
a clear and authentic statement of the principles and objects contended for in thia 



156 



MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 



No man took a more active, and few a more effective, 
part in this great civil contest than Mr. Prentiss. He set 
out for the North the latter part of June, and during 
his journey, addressed large assemblies of the people in 
almost every city he passed through. His coming was 
watched for along the route with the utmost eagerness ; 
everywhere thousands seemed to be lying in wait for 
him, as one whom the people delighted to honor ; repeat- 
edly the steamer, on which he had taken passage, was 
forced to delay her departure or stop on her way, 
until he had satiated the popular curiosity by making a 
speech. 

A friend writing to him from Lexington, Ky., under date 
of August, 18th, 1840, thus alludes to this Northern 
journey : — 

I traced your route by the newspapers through St. Louis, 
Chicago, Buffalo, Syracuse, to the city of New York, and 



election by the Whigs and their allie3, the Conservatives, — will find it in " a Decla- 
ration of Principles and Purposes, adopted by a General Convention of the Whigs 
of New England, at Bunker Hill, on the 10th of September, 1840,"— prepared by 
Mr. Webster — (See his Works, vol. ii. p. 41.) — and in Mr. Clay's speeches at 
Hanover County, Va., June 27, and at the Nashville Convention, August IT, 
1840.— (See his Life and Speeches. Mallory's Edit.— Vol ii. pp. 408, 427.) 

The opening paragraphs of the Bunker Hill manifesto are so characteristic of 
the Expounder of the Constitution, and so admoaitory to our day, that they deserve 
to be cited. 

"Fifty thousand of the free electors of the New England States, honored also 
by the presence of like free electors from nearly every other State in the Union, 
having assembled on Bunker Hill, on this 10th day of September, proceed to set 
forth a declaration of their principles, and of the occasion and objects of their 
meeting. 

" In the first place, we declare our unalterable attachment to that public liberty, 
the purchase of so much blood and treasure, in the acquisition of which the field 
whereon we stand, obtained early and imperishable renown. Bunker Hill is not a 
spot on which we shall forget the principles of our fathers, or suffer anything to 
quench within our bosoms the love of freedom which we have Inherited from 
them. 

" In the next place, we declare our warm and hearty devotion to the Constitu- 
tion of the country, and to that Union of the States which it has so happily 



PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 1840. 15t 

though your arrival at home I have not yet seen announced, 
it has doubtless taken place. I can form no adequate idea 
of the pleasure to be derived from such a journey as yours, 
when through a space of near twenty-five hundred miles, the 
most public and flattering demonstrations of the approval, the 
esteem, and the admiration of the people were, on all sides, 
oflfered you. It falls nothing short of a Roman triumphal pro- 
cession, even in its external show, and when in the one case it 
is the homage paid to intellectual worth, and in the other to 
military courage and success — often over untrained barbarians, 
I cannot but regard the modern as the most glorious mark 
of public* approbation. Mr. Clay and Mr. Crittenden have 
both gone to the Nashville Convention. The former understood 
you were to be there, and expressed his regret very strongly, 
when I informed him you could not be present. 

Among his papers is a large package of letters from New 
York, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Maryland, Alabama, 

cemented, and and so long and so prosperously preserved. We call ourselves by 
no local names, we recognize no geographical divisions, while we give utterance 
to our sentiments on high constitutional and political subjects. We are Americans, 
citizens of the United States, knowing no other country, and desiring to be dis- 
tinguished by no other appellation. We believe the Constitution, while adminis- 
tered wisely and in its proper spirit, to be capable of protecting all parts of the 
country, securing all interests, and perpetuating a national brotherhood among 
all the States. We believe that to foment local jealousies, to attempt to prove the 
existence of opposite interests between one part of the country and another, and 
thus to disseminate feelings of distrust and alienation, while it is in contemptuous 
disregard of the counsels of the great father of his country, is but one form in 
which irregular ambition, destitute of all true patriotism, and a love of power, reck- 
less of the means of its gratification, exhibit their unsubdued and burning desire. 

"We believe, too, that party spirit, however natural or unavoidable it may be ia 
free republics, yet, when it gains such an ascendency in men's minds as leads 
them to substitute party for country, to seek no ends but party ends, no approba- 
tion but party approbation, and to fear no approach or contumely, so that there be 
no party dissatisfaction, not only alloys the true enjoyment of such institutions, but 
weakens every day the foundations on which they stand. 

" We are in favor of the liberty of speech, and of the press ; we are friends of 
free discussion ; we espouse the cause of popular education ; we believe in man's 
capacity for self-government ; we desire to see the freest and widest dissemination 
of knowledge and of truth ; and we believe, especially, in the benign influence of 
religious feeling and moral instruction on the social, as well as on the individual, 
happiness of man." 



158 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

Maine, Louisiana, Massachusetts and other States, begging 
him, on behalf of Tippecanoe clubs and Whig associations, 
to be present at barbecues, mass meetings, grand con- 
ventions, log cabin raisings, and whatever other strange 
names designated the political gatherings of that annus 
mirahilis. These letters, signed, as many of them are, 
by gentlemen of the highest distinction in their party, 
and coming, too, from all sections of the Union, afford 
a very gratifying memorial of the estimation in which 
he was held by his political brethren throughout the 
nation. "If it is once noised abroad that Prentiss is to he 
here ! the people far and near will turn out en massed 
Such is the burden of nearly all these communications, 
whether they came from the Red River in Louisiana, or 
from the interior of New York — from Baltimore, or a 
remote hamlet on the Tombigbee. Some of them are quite 
pathetic in their entreaties. One writes after this wise : 
" If you will come, I believe you might turn the scale 
in this State, so intense and universal is the desire to 
see and hear you." Another declares that the region to 
which he is invited is " missionary ground," and beseeches 
him not to refuse those who are trying to reclaim it from 
political heathenism, the advantage of one salutary address. 
A few extracts from these letters may interest the 
reader. A distinguished politician of Tennessee writes 
him, under date of July 8 : 

Since my arrival in Nashville, I have found great anxiety 
manifested to know wLether you will be present at the Conven- 
tion to be held here on the 17" th of August. Will you come? 
Your reply must not be in the negative ; for, I assure you, much 
depends upon your presence. I believe a certainty of it would 
be good for ten thousand people. You will find here a set of the 
"warmest-hearted, most thorough-going, and noblest "Whigs you 
have ever met ; and a few days spent with»them will add vigor 



INVITATIONS TO ADDRESS THE PEOPLE. 159 

to the blows •which you will deal the enemy in Mississippi, in 
September and October. So come you must. No excuse will be 
received. 

A letter from ray father-in-law, Dr. S , accompanies this, 

pressing your attendance. He writes it, not only as one of the 
"Invitation Committee," but as a Whig, and your personal 
friend. You will find in his home everything prepared for y(Hir 
accommodation, for he insists that you shall be Ids guest. The 
ladies add their entreaties to his and mine ; and I know you are 
too much of a Bayard to withstand theii' request. 

The Chairman of the Whig State Central Committee of 
Maryland writes him from Baltimore, early in August : 

At the earnest solicitation of many of the prominent Whigs in 
this City and State, I write to beg of you to visit Maryland on 
your return to the South, and spend a few days with us. It is 
the unanimous desire of the Whigs of Baltimore, to have you 
favor them with a speech. It would, in the opinion of your 
many warm friends here, go very far to turn the scale in favor 
of the Whig cause in this city, and, perhaps, in the State. The 
contest will be fierce in every county in Maryland, and if our 
eloquent friends, from abroad will give us a helping hand, we 
feel very sure of a successful result. 

About the same time he received the following letter, 
signed by ten of the leading Whigs of that city : 

Baltimore, August 4, 1S40. 

Sie:— 

At a meeting of the " Fort Meigs Club of the City 
of Baltimore," held on Saturday evening last, the following 
resolution was unanimously adopted : 

^'' JSesoked, That a committee of ten be appointed, whose duty 
it shall be to correspond with the Hon. S. S. Prentiss, and 
request him to address the people of Baltimore, at such time as 
will suit his convenience." 

The Committee take great pleasure in discharging the duty 



160 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

assigned them, and tliey beg leave to assure yon, that, in asking 
your compliance, they express the wish of all the Whig citizens 
of our city. 

It is too late now to enter into a detail of the circumstances 
which induce the Whig party everywhere to solicit the aid of 
influential and prominent friends, in order that all its members 
may be aroused to more decisive action, and that those who 
oppose us from a good motive may listen to a calm and dispassion- 
ate discussion of the important interests involved in the approach- 
ing contest for the Presidency. The questions which divide 
us and our opponents are too well known for us to dwell upon 
them in a communication of this kind. Suflfice it to say, that we 
solemnly believe, that if the rapid march of Executive usurpa- 
tion be not arrested by a timely change of our rulers, the day 
will quickly come when men of all parties and of every vocation 
will lament, in bitterness of spirit, the wreck of those rights and 
privileges which were once so peculiarly their own. Although 
our hopes of success are as strong as they can be, and every 
expression of public sentiment gives confirmation to our hopes, 
yet we would stimulate every one to a determination of purpose 
that will not stop short of the irrecoverable overthrow of the 
party in power. * * * * 

In the vast array of champions in our cause, we look with 
peculiar pleasure to you, as one whose eloquence and compre- 
hensive powers of mind can do much to stay the downward 
tendency of public morals, and the prostration of general and 
individual welfare; and whose patriotic efibrts, in pointing out 
the path of duty, or laying bare the profligacy of our rulers, 
have accomplished the happiest results ; and we sincerely hope 
that your time and convenience will allow you, at an early day, 
an occasion to gratify your numerous friends here. You will, 
therefore, oblige us by informing us when you will be with 
us, in order that all necessary arrangements may be made for 
your reception. 

A gentleman who had known him in Mississippi, writes 
from Utica, N. Y., under date of August 5th : 



PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 1840. 161 

I have just seen accounts of your famous reception by tho 
citizens of New York, on your way to Portland. I doubt not 
you gave tbem, as usual, such a speecli as they were unaccus- 
tomed t<j. My object in now writing is to say, that the people 
liere, and all round the country^ are looking for you at this place 
on the 12th. It is the day of the State Convention, for the 
nomination of candidates for Governor, Presidential Electors, 
&c., &c. ; and there is to be an immense gathering of the masses, 
to assist in the Log Cabin raising. It will doubtless be the lar- 
gest popular assemblage ever convened on any political occasion 
in the Empire State ; and it has gone abroad that you are to be 
here. It" it is possible for you to do so, you may be sure thart 
you will confer an everlasting favor upon the party, and gratify 
thousands, yes, tens of thousands — for the count will have to 
be made by myriads. You have no idea of the incalculable good 
you could do. The fact is, the people have ut their hearts upon 
your coming. 

I send you by this day's post, a lot of newspapers, which I had 
first prepared to send to Corwiu, of the Yazoo Banner ; but 
after ray wife had read them, she was determined you, or rather 
Miss Anna, should have them, that she might see what the 
Buckeyes, Wolverines, and other Western folks, had said about 
you. 

The following is an extract from a letter, written under 
date of August 8, by a gentleman of New Hampshire to a 
noted politician of Maine : 

I perceive by the New York papers that Mr. Prentiss, of 
Mississippi, is about to visit Portland ; and having learned to 
estimate his worth to the country, and the cause of the country, 
by the principles he promulgates in his speeches, very many of 
the Whigs of this region are anxious that he should meet them 
at the Spring Hotel, in Newbury, Vermont, on the day of the Con- 
vention of the valley towns.- There are few men in the Union, 
whose voice would be heeded with more cheerfulness than that of 
Mr. P. Webster, linked as he is with every tie that binds us to 



162 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

the Ooiistitiition and laws of the country, possessing as he does 
the deep respect of every politician of the times, would hardly 
command so large an audience, or carry so heavy an influence 
as Prentiss. The sublime polish of Everett, the rough humor 
of Bell, the home-made eloquence of Wilson, and the convincing 
arguments of Slade, stand no chance in competition with his 
powerful speeches. The cry is for Peentiss ! The Whigs 
of Vermont and New Hampshire want him to come up to their 
help. The need^ they deserve it. Will he not come ? Will you, 
sir, be good enough to inform him of our wants, and of the 
pressing solicitations of his brethren in the cause of Reform ? I 
hope you will ; nor do I hope more ardently than hundreds of 
others whom I have seen. I think Mr. Peextiss may do us 
much good. He is a Southern man with national principles, 
Whig in heart and soul. Ours is the dark corner of the State, 
like the north side of Solomon's temple; and it cannot be 
enlightened without the aid of distinguished men from abroad. j 

Nothing could show more forcibly the peculiar attractioa ; 

of his eloquence, than the uniform tenor of these invitations ; 4 

while the contemporaneous notices of his speeches, and the f 

recollections of them, which are still fresh in the memory of 
tens of thousands, all attest their wonderful power and 
beauty. Indeed, were I to.put on paper the various descrip- 
tions M'hich have chanced to reach me of his addresses, 
in 1840, at Portland, Newark, Buffalo, and other places, 
they would make a little volume. Unfortunately, not one 
was ever reported. It only remained, therefore, to give 
such impressions of them as could be recovered after the 
lapse of so many years. Reminiscences of this kind are 
unsatisfactory, it is true ; a genuine piece of oratory, like 
fine music, or a beautiful landscape, can never be repro- 
duced in mere verbal description ; but yet they have a 
certain value and interest of their own. With what avidity 
we read personal anecdotes and recollections of the great, 
orators of antiquity. Who is not delighted with such 



r 



SrEECH AT PORTLAND. 163 

reminiscences of the celebrated speeches of Chatham, Burke, 
Fox, Sheridan, and Canning ; or those of Patrick Henry, 
Ames, Clay, Webster, and Calhoun. 

The following is an account of Mr. Prentiss' speech at 
Portland : 

It would be quite impossible, at this late day, to give anything 
like an adequate account of Mr. Peentiss' reception and speech 
in his native town, during the great campaign of 1840. No 
description, however fehcitous, can do justice to such a scene, 
even if written under the full excitement of the occasion ; much 
less one prepared many years afterwards, when the vivid and 
peculiar impressions of the moment have faded from raeinory. 
Still, what I can do to bring back and represent to you that 
memorable evening, shall be done with the utmost pleasure. 

The Presidential election of 1840, you need hardly be reminded, 
was marked by popular agitation and enthusiasm, unparalleled 
in the history of the government. The fountains of the great 
deep seemed broken up, and far more than twice forty days and 
forty nights, the whole nation was tossed, and carried hither 
and thither, upon the fiercest waves of political excitement and 
revolution. 

As Mr. Prentiss himself expressed it, in his speech at Port- 
land (I quote from the notes of a meagre report) : — " Rarely 
haB the history of the world witnessed such a scene as that 
now passing before our eyes. We behold this whole nation, 
from the shores of the Atlantic to the Mississippi, rising up as 
one man, and flocking together in every State, city, and village, 
to discuss and hold counsel upon the administration of their pub- 
lic affairs. It is a grand movement of the People. Far and 
near, throughout the Union, they are mustering for the contest, 
bearing in the midst of them their simple Log Cabin banner ! 
By this sign — emblem of peace, patriotism, and homely toil — > 
they expect to conquer. Everywhere resound ' dread notes of 
preparation.' Everywhere is the skirmishing going on. Look 
at the faces of the two parties. Upon one sits Defeat ; upon 
the other, the joy of coming triumph. Look at their acts too. 
Alrcp ' • 'i^.tory perches upon the "Whig banner. You hear its 



164 



MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 



notes sounding across the mountains, like those of young eagles 
screaming in the air. See how, beyond the AUeghanies, they 
are rushing to the support of their old friend, who helped 
vanquish for them the banded Bedouins of the forest ! In the 
young and giant West, hardly are the vestiges of Locofocoism 
to be found. Old Kentucky has already spoken with a voice 
of thunder. Indiana, too, has spoken. And wherever the 
people utter their voice, the swelling tide of victory greets your 
ear. The tornado from the West is moving onward to the 
South. Why, look to the party in power. The old Democracy 
everywhere are leaving it. Their veteran generals are desert- 
ing them. The old Jackson men — the Imperial Guard of the 
party — have gone or are going, and the feelings of those who are 
left, may be seen in their dismayed countenances ! 

"Fellow-citizens: a noble triumph is within your reach, 
and you have a cause worthy of being crowned with it. A great 
civil crisis is upon us, and the interests of generations yet to 
come are involved in the issue. At Bunker Hill, what would 
have restrained you from sharing in the battle? Your ballot is 
now your bullet ; and the one may serve as well here as the other 
did there. I have recently passed through the Great Valley, 
and travelled thence along the immense lakes — each one of 
them another Mediterranean — which stretch on to the bordery 
of New England. Everywhere I have found the Whigs using 
the same arguments — animated by one sentiment — inspired by 
the same hopes. Never before did such complete unanimity 
pervade their ranks. Their meetings are incessant, immense in 
numbers, and full of enthusiasm. Victory, I repeat, already 
perches upon our standard." 

It was in this crisis of the contest, and when the Whigs were 
thus exultant in the assurance of coming victory, that Mr. 
Peextiss arrived in his native town. Glowing reports of the 
speeches made by him, while journeying North, heralded his 
approach, and redoubled the desire to hear him in Portland. 
So eager was this desire, that he had .scarcely crossed his 
mother's threshold, before a committee waited upon him with 
an urgent request that lie would address the people. 

Many of our citizens had already listened to Mr. Prentiss. 



SPEECH AT PORTLAND. 165 

a 

Ou the 4th of Julj, in 1837, happening to be in Portland, he 
electrified a "Whig gathering by the eloquence of an impromptu 
speech ; and several of his fellow-townsmen were present at the 
Webster Dinner, in 1838, when old Faneuil Hall fairly trem- 
bled with the thunders of applause, called forth by his address. 
But to four-fifths of the mixed assembly congregated on 
Thursday evening, Aug. 21st, 1840, Mr. P. was an entire stran- 
ger ; they had never heard and few of them had ever seen him 
before. A considerable portion of his auditors were from neigh- 
boring towns — from Scarborough, Westbrook, Gorham, Fal- 
mouth, North Yarmouth, Brunswick (including many of the 
College students) ; while some came from a distance of fifty, 
seventy-five, or one hundred miles. I doubt if, since the visit 
of Lafayette, Portland had witnessed so large and enthusiastic a 
gathering of the people. The meeting was held in front of the 
City Hall. Long before the hour had arrived, the windows of 
the hotels, stores, and dwelling-houses, near by upon Congress 
and Middle streets, were hned with ladies ; the high steps too, 
fronting the Hall, with the adjoining rooms, and every accessible 
doorway and window, were crowded with the beauty, fashion, 
and matronly worth of the city. The mass of the people 
were in. front of the rostrum, erected for the speaker imme- 
diately before the Hall. Liglits were scattered all around ; 
and the illuniination gave a brilliant appearance to the scene. 
The effect of the lights about the platform, which only grew 
brighter and disclosed the speaker more distinctly to the multi- 
tude, as the early evening gradually darkened into night, was 
particularly fine. 

Mr. Prentiss, conducted by old friends, made his appearance 
just as the sun was going down. The instant he was seen 
ascending the rostrum (for by his lameness he was at once 
recognized) a shout of joyous and heartfelt welcome greeted him 
from every part of the assembly. He was introduced, in a 
spirited and highly eulogistic address, by his old college friend, 
Col. John D. Kinsman — a gentleman who will be long and 
most kindly remembered for the fine social qualities which so 
eminently distinguished him. 



166 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

On presenting himself, at the close of Col. K.'s address, he 
was hailed again with three enthusiastic — I might almost say, 
affectionate cheers ; for the feeling which pervaded the vast con- 
course, was something far deeper and more cordial than that of 
mere admiration for oratorical talent. It betokened a warm 
personal interest, as well as pride, in the man. "When the 
cheering had subsided, he looked around upon his audience, his 
countenance radiant with emotion, and then, 

" Like a man inspired," 

spoke right on for three hours. 

And now, could I report to you that address exactly as it 
issued from his hps, I feel the most entire assurance that 
in style, logic, and patriotic sentiment, it would, be deemed 
worthy a place beside the best specimens of American popular 
eloquence, whether of the present or past times. But, alas I 
instead of the real gem, resplendent in strength and beauty, 
there remain only petty fragments, and those almost turned to 
dust. He began his address by thanking the audience for their 
cordial welcome, and expressing the delight with which he 
found himself in the midst of so many old friends. The thirteen 
years which had elapsed since he went forth from them in quest 
of fortune, seemed but as a few days ; and in the pleasant and 
thronging associations of the Past, he could hardly recall his 
thoughts to the weighty errand that had summoned them toge- 
ther. Gladly would he here rest, like the Knight of the Leopard, 
and forget, for a while, that war is raging between the Christian 
and the Infidel. But he must turn away, alike from the grateful 
associations of the Past and the friendly courtesies of the Present, 
to remind them of that Public Opinion, which is now weighing 
in its scales the political destiny of the Republic. After this 
graceful exordium, he proceeded at once to a discussion of the 
great principles and interests involved, as he conceived, in the 
pending election. A large portion of his address was devoted to 
an elaborate exposition of the nature, laws, and eifects of the 
credit-system. Although liable to serious abuse, he contended 
that, under wise limitations, it is a most beneficent system, and 



SPEECH AT PORTLAND. 167 

had been an inexhaustible mine of wealth to the United States. 
It was the twin influence of credit and confidence, especially, 
which had built up the Great West to its height of power and 
industrial grandeur. Armed with these peaceful implements. 
American industry and enterprise had subdued the wilderness 
and caused it to rejoice and Mossom as the rose. From the 
credit-system he passed naturally to the currency, capital, labor, 
and their practical relations. His remarks on the true position 
of the working-man in this country, were admirable. There are 
demagogues among us, he said, who tell the poor man, in the 
very spirit of the arch-fiend in Pandemonium, that the rich man 
is his enemy. And yet how often do we see the employer of 
to-day become the laborer of to-morrow, and the laborer changed 
into the employer! This is the legitimate result of our free 
institutions ; and how, in face of such a fact, dares any man to 
inflame the bad passions of the difl*erent classes of society, by 
teaching that there is a natural hostility between them. The 
sons of the poor man have actually the better chance in the race 
of wealth ; as a general thing, they first reach the golden emi- 
nence. Stephen Girard began life a poor boy ; and so did John 
Jacob Astor. They were the architects of their own fortunes. 
They acquired their wealth by their superior enterprise. The 
son of the poor man is most likely to prosper, because honest 
industry, perseverance, and hope, are most likely to be his por- 
tion ; and these are the mainsprings of success in life. The 
party in power address ''the toiling millions," as the cant 
phrase is, just as if poverty were their destiny — a sort of fjite, 
from whose decree there is no escape. But poverty is, in this 
countr}'', no such Procrustean bed ; jior is labor here subject to 
any such hard necessity. Our institutions are illustrated in the 
race-course, where every horse is put upon his own mettle. The 
slowest cannot win the prize ; it belongs to the fleetest. "We 
train our sons, like young eagles, to soar aloft, and not to flutter 
about like owls. I say to the laboring man : You have the same 
chance before you that Benjamin Franklin had. The path of 
success is as free to you as it ever was to the thousands and tens 
of thousands, whose industry and enterprise have raised them to 
affluence, independence, station, and honor in the community. 



168 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

I never hear these infamous appeals to popular envy and preju- 
dice without being reminded of Satan tempting our mother Eve. 
As the arch-fiend 

"Squat like a toad, close at the ear of Eve, 
Assaying by his devilish art to reach 
The organs of her fancy," 

SO do the Locofoco demagogues approach the laboring man, 
*' inspiring venom," and raising 

• distemper'd, discontented thoughts. 



Vain hopes, vain aims, inordinate desires." 

Nor can I ever witness these attempts of passion and Satanic 
cunning without wishing I possessed the spear of Ithuriel, that I 
might touch and unmask the monster. 

From the currency and labor, Mr. Prentiss passed to the 
alarming encroachments of Executive power and patronage. The 
time had come when the foreign missions of the Republic, and 
even the highest judicial stations, were given in reward of 
mere partisan services. Unworthy servants, whom the People 
had cast off and consigned to a political grave, rise again in 
newness of life at the touch of Executive favor. The rights of 
the States, too, were falling a prey to Executive influence.- The 
elective franchise was trodden underfoot at its behest. Look at 
the outrage recently perpetrated upon the Congressional Delega- 
tion from Kew Jersey — a State which shed her best blood in the 
revolutionary struggle for our Hberties. The Whig members 
were sacrificed without a hearing, without evidence, without 
trial, and this by direct intej-ference of the Executive with the 
legislative branch of the Government. Heaven forbid that 
such violent measures should ever be repeated! The Union 
itself could not long survive them. It is my deliberate opinion, 
that Locofocoism has done more to break asunder the connect- 
ing links— the ties of honor, interest, and affection— which bind 
together the States of this Union, than all other causes since the 
formation of the Government. But here let me say that I take 
a wide distinction between Democracy and Locofocoism. I 
believe, the great mass of those who have supported this Admi- 



SPEECH AT PORTLAND. 169 

nistration are honest men, and suppose themselves to be genuine 
democrats. But for the guides, who have misled and deceived 
them, I have no such respect. They have concocted a system 
of politics which I term Locofocoism. It is poHtics boiled down, 
so to say, and distilled into a poisonous -drng. They have labelled 
it Democracy ; but I regard it as the very essence of political 
evil. He here referred in illustration, and with thrilling effect, 
to the outrages consummated in his own State. There, where 
these apples of Sodom were already ripe, the Locofoco governor 
had declared to the world that Mississippi repudiated her public 
obligations — that she would not pay the State debt, principal or 
interest. The same governor had encouraged forgery, by recom- 
mending a repeal of the law prohibiting the issue of spurious 
bank paper. It is true, that the body of the Administration 
party in Mississippi do not sustain these ultra and immoral prin- 
ciples ; but most of their leaders do — in act, if not by word. 
They are like the Cornish wreckers, who hang out false lights 
to allure and deceive the ill-fated mariner ; so do these selfish 
demagogues delude the people by their false and wicked doc- 
trines. Look not, then, at mere professions. The devil does 
not always show his cloven foot ; but he is none the less a devil 
for all that. There are false prophets now, as there always have 
been, in the world. Take heed, therefore, when men hold up 
before your eye the sparkling goblet of Democracy — beware, lest 
there be poison in the draught. 

Mr. P. now passed to a spirited vindication of Gen. Harrison, 
the "Whig candidate for the Presidency, against the charges of 
the other party, closing with a beautiful eulogy upon his plain, 
homespun, farmer-like virtues. In the course of his eulogy, he 
dwelt with great earnestness upon the mischiefs of a profligate 
press, comparing some of the Administration journals, which 
had been especially fierce in their assaults upon Gen. Harrison, 
to the hell-hounds that Milton stations at the infernal gates.* 

♦ " About her middle round 
A cry of hell-hounds, never ceasing, bark'd 
"With wide Cerberean mouths full loud, and rung 
A hideous peal ; yet, when they list, would creep, 
If aught disturbed their noise, into her womb, 

VOL n, 8 



110 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

But I fear you are weary of this bald, meagre sketch, and will, 
therefore, stop. 

He spoke, as I have said, for three hours, and with great 
rapidity. The laDguage, too, was chosen with such exquisite 
propriety, every word was so pat in its place, the illustrations 
were so happy and unexpected, and drawn from such a varied 
store of reading, image followed, image in such quick succession, 
that a full and exact report of the whole would, I am sure, 
have baffled the skill of the best stenographer. The sentiments 
were plainly the fruit of long and mature reflection ; all the 
rest was no less obviously the inspiration of the hour. It was 
the first time his mother had ever heard him, and perhaps the 
tone of his address was somewhat affected and softened by 
the consciousness of her presence and that of his sisters. The 
audience listened to him without a single sign of impatience to 
the last sentence. All were delighted, and, with one heart, 
united at the close in giving him twelve cheeks. The welkin 
rang with applause, as sincere and enthusiastic as ever greeted 
the ear of Night. Three cheers followed for Mississippi, three 
cheers for Maine, and then the charmed multitude separated 
with three cheers more for Seargext S. Peentiss!" 

,f>ne of his greatest speeches in 1840 was delivered at 
i^Wi.ui, N. J., on his way back to Mississippi. He after- 
wards referred to his reception at Newark with unusual 
satisfaction, and intimated that he deemed his speech there 
one of the best made by him during the campaign, I have 



And kennel there ; yet there still bark'd and howl'd, 
Within unseen. Far less abhorr'd than these, 
Vex'd Scylla, bathing in the sea that parts 
Calabria from the hoarse Trinacrian shore ; 
Nor uglier follow the night-hag, when, calPd 
In secret, riding through the air she comes, 
Lur'd with the smell of infant blood, to dance 
With Lapland witches, while the laboring moon 
Eclipses at their charms." 

Paradise Lost, Book ii. 11. 653-66«. 



SPEECH AT NEWARK. 171 

been so fortunate as to obtain very interesting accounts of 
this remarkable address from two of the most eminent 
citizens of New Jersey, themselves distinguished for their 
eloquent gifts. 

The Hon. William Pennington, then Governor of the 
State, writes thus in relation to it : 

Newark, Feb. 14, 1S54. 

Dear Sir : — * 

I had the pleasure of hearing your brother, whose 
death the whole country mourns, deliver his great speech in 
this city, in the summer of 1840. I rode with him to the meet- 
ing, and sat on the stage by his side ; I had, therefore, a most 
favorable opportunity for seeing and hearing all that passed. It 
was a ina>s-meeting of the "Whigs of the county of Essex, in the 
midst of the exciting contest between General Harrison and Mr. 
Yan Buren. The number present was computed at five thousand. 
It was one of those mild, serene, and genial days which often 
mark the close of onr northern summer. The place was under 
the shade of the elm-trees, on the Military Common, east of the 
Episcopal church, which fully protected the speaker and the 
audience from the rays of the descending sun. 

I had never before seen Mr. Prentiss, and it was my loss \at 
I never met him again. But his reputation was well a^ ..reui- 
ated in this community — filled as it is with business men, famihar 
with the South, and careful observers of the pubhc characters 
and events of their country. A large number of the Democratic 
party were in the assembly. I cannot pretend to describe the 
speech, but it made on me an impression I have never forgotten. 
After hearing many political addresses from the ablest men in 
our country, I consider (and have often so said) that this speech 
of Mr. Prentiss' surpassed them all. He spoke between three 
and four hours, commencing about four o'clock in the afternoon. 
The audience stood in solid ranks, and during the whole period, 
every man kept his place, intent only on the orator, and joining 
in the frequent shouts of applause. When he began to speak, he 



112 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

appeared to falter and hesitate,* but after some twenty minutes 
this all passed away ; and from that time to the close, it was one 
continuous outburst of high wrought manly eloquence. His 
manner was fine, his language strong and expressive, and he 
could carry an audience further with him than any man I evei 
beard. It seemed as if he held the very hearts of the immense 
columns before and around him at his command. When he rose 
in the majesty of his noble thoughts, the whole assembly 
appeared to rise with him. For, after all, the power of the 
epeech was in the sentiments and views presented. There was 
no tinsel about it, no clap-trap ; but it seemed as if the man had 
an inexhaustible mine of thought from which he could draw at 
pleasure. 

He reminded rae, at times, of Webster, not in manner, but in 
depth and wisdom. It is the unanimous opinion among us, that 
no man has ever come up to this effort within our circle of 
observation. He was inspired for the occasion, and we were all 
inspired with him. His main argument was to point out, in 
connection with the subject of the tariff, the true characteristics 
of a Kepublican Government, and to demonstrate that industry 
has here its reward, and the man of labor his just position in 
the world. Many of his hearers were our respectable mechanic?, 
men of fortune and of character, and their splendid mansions 
surrounded the open area in which he was speaking. I shall 
never forget his effective appeal in support of the great principle 
of social equality for which he was contending, and the right of 
the humblest, by his own industry, to raise himself and his 
family to the highest standing among his fellow-men. Going on 
in an elevated strain, he turned to these costly homes, and said, 
with a power and a manner quite inimitable, " What has reared 
those princely dwellings that surround me ? who now occupy 
those abodes of comfort and honor ? It is industry ; it is pro- 
tecti(«n to American labor ; it is the salutary influence of our 
Republican Institutions which has built these edifices ; and their 



* This was owing to a severe indisposition, from which he had been su£Ferlr.g fot 
several days. He was, in fact, quite ill when he rose to speak, — -Eu. 



SPEECH AT NEWARK. 173 

wealthy occupants were once, it may be, poor and homeless 
boys !" I give you only the imperfect idea ; no one could ever 
report him; but every word was true to the letter, and tho 
whole audience knew and felt it. 

I can only say, in conclusion, that, judging from the exhibition 
of this day, your brother possessed a power of thought and a 
faculty as a public speaker not excelled, in my humble opinion, 
by any man in the country. 

I am, with very great regard. 

Your friend and servant, 

TVm. Penxington. 

For the following I am indebted to the Hon. Joseph 
C. Hornblower, LL.D., then Chief Justice of New Jersey : 

Newark, March 6, 1855. 

My Deae Sir ; — 

I should be delighted if it were in my power 
to give you even a faint idea of the speech you refer to ; much 
more, if I could give you such an account of it, as would do jus- 
tice to the splendid argument, and if possible, the more splendid 
eloquence of your brother on that occasion. It was the first 
and only time I ever heard him speak, and I expected much 
from what public fame had said of his professional, as well as 
his political and intellectual power; but the half had not been 
told me. I had witnessed many exhibitions of eloquence and 
mental power in the forum, and on the poHtical arena, that 
did honor to the heads and hearts of the speakers; but I 
have no hesitation in saying, after making every allowance 
for the excitement of the occasion and my sympathy with his 
political sentiments, that I never listened with such intense 
interest and delight to any other public speaker. Nor was I 
alone in my admiration, for every one who heard him, however 
they differed from him in their political affinities, seemed anx- 
ious to give him the meed of applause. His speech was deliv- 
ered on the Military Park, in front of my house. Circumstan- 
ces admitted of a ver short notice to the public of the time 



114: MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

and place of his speaking, yet thousands assembled around the 
platform erected for him, under the wide-spreading shade of our 
stately elms. The first word he enunciated, silenced the multi- 
tude, attracted every eye, and riveted the attention of all his 
audience. His voice was clear and distinct, loud enough to be 
heard by all, and yet euphonious and pleasant. Calm and self- 
possessed, he was not thrown otF his guard either by the acclama- 
tions of applause, or by what some speakers might have consid- 
ered as rude and impertinent interruptions. He never failed to 
answer, in the most easy and courteous manner, the questions 
that were occasionally addressed to him from the crowd by 
some doubting or carping politician. 

But, my dear sir, you cannot expect me, especially at this 
distance of time, to give you his language, or his unanswerable 
arguments. You might as well ask me to give you an exact 
geometrical diagram of the forked lightning, leaving, for an 
instant only, its brilliant track in the vaulted sky, and yet im- 
pressing our minds with a sublimity and grandeur never to be 
forgotten, as to ask me to give you the language or the argu- 
ments that flowed in copious and overwhelming, yet placid 
streams, from his heart and his lips. One incident, however, I 
cannot forget ; and if you will indulge me in the use of my own 
language, where I cannot remember his, I will endeavor to give 
you some idea of it. TTliile earnestly speaking in favor of the 
protection of American industry, standing with his face towards 
the audience on his right, a voice from the left — of some honest 
inquirer, or possibly, a hostile politician — loudly asked him, if 
that system would not make the rich richer, and the poor 
poorer ? The orator, instantly, but courteously, turned to the 
interrogator, and thanked him for putting the question; and 
then slowly turning his gaze, with an appropriate and corres- 
ponding motion of his arm, as if surveying the stately edifices 
surrounding the Park, he said : " My friend, I am informed that, 
much to the honor of your city, those elegant dwellings that 
adorn this Park, and the glittering equipages standing before 
some of their doors, or now rolling through your streets, 
belong, almost exclusively, to mechanics, or to the sons of me- 



SPEECH AT NEWARK. ' 115 

chanics. It is a splendid testimony to the enterprise, skill and 
industry of Newark, and enough to gladden the heart of every 
patriot. Bat^ let me tell you, that but for the blessed influence 
of that protection which the government has hitherto afforded 
our manufacturers, you who have worked in your shops, would 
be doing so now — and you whose sires, to their honor be it spo- 
ken, were blacksmiths and shoemakers, would, be mending the 
old axes and shoes that they made, instead of occupying the 
the palace-like dwellings that surround us." The orator then, 
quietly changing his position and addressing the audience at 
large, resumed the course of argument he was pursuing when 
interrupted by the interrogatory put to him, and finished his 
address amid the loud, and long continued plaudits of the 
enlightened and admiring multitude. 

Your lamented brother, I assure you, made his mark here, 
and left impressions upon the public mind in this community, 
that time alone can efface. Please accept this, my dear sir, as 
my poor tribute to the memory and splendid talents of your 
departed brother. 

With great sincerity and respect. 

Your obedient servant 

Jos. 0. HORNBLOWEE. 

\ 
V 

The following letters give a glimpse of his feelings in 
view of the praises heaped upon him : 

TO HIS YOUNGEST BEOTHEK. 

New York, August 80, 1840. 
Deae George: — 

I am now on ray return South, and shall leave to- 
morrow for New Orleans, in a packet-ship. I do this to avoid 
the fatigue and annoyance of the land route. On my way by 
the lakes, and since I arrived in the North, I have been continu- 
ally engaged in the great political contest, until I am worn out 
and utterly exhausted. I have made speeches at New Orleans, 
St. Louis, Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, Buffalo, Syracuse, Ne"W 



176 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

York, Newark, Portland, and last, though not least, at GorTiam. 
My audiences have varied in number from two to six thousand, 
and I have usually spoken three hours, generally in the open air. 
So you see I have been stumping it upon a grand scale — no less 
than that of the Union. I have, in addition, received from fifty 
to a hundred invitations from different quarters of the country, 
which I have declined, and I now go by sea for the purpose of 
avoiding the necessity of addressing the citizens of Philadelphia 
and Baltimore, who are, I learn, lying in wait for me. Oh ! that 
I were in Germany, quietly studying the history of the past, 
instead of participating in the history of the present. Indeed, 
and in good sooth, I am gorged with politics, and surfeited with 
publicity. I had rather fish in the Great Brook one day, than 
spend a year amid the senseless hurras of political partisans. It 
is not reputation one gets — it is only notoriety. However, in 
two months the contest will be over, and I must hold on tiU 
then. If the conclusion was more remote, I should certainly 
desert. Presuming you feel some interest in political matters, 
I doubt not you will be pleased to learn, that the Whigs have 
every prospect of success. I feel confident of the election of 
General Harrison. 

I suppose Anna has told you all about her visit South. It 
was a source of unmingled gratification to me, and, I think, 
both of advantage and pleasure to her. Her health seems en- 
tirely restored, and her spirits are again buoyant. She had 
every reason to be delighted with the South. She was treated 
by the good people there with unbounded kindness and atten- 
tion. Indeed, I never saw one make friends so rapidly. All be- 
came attached to her, and she deserved it, for she is a girl of no- 
ble and generous character. Should her health require it, I shall 
not hesitate again to take her South. I spent only a few days in 
Portland. My health was not good, and of course I did not 
reap much pleasure, except from meeting mother and Abby. 
Abby is well, and the same quiet, amiable, affectionate, single- 
hearted, and sensible girl as heretofore. Mother came with me 
to this city, and is now at WilHam's, in excellent health and 
spirits, and greatly surprised at the ease with which she has ac- 



LETTERS. 177 

complished what she considered a great enterprise. I think her 
visit will prove of much service to her. We received your let- 
ters by the Great Western and the Acadia, and were all much 
gratified. Your presents, through Mr. S., were safely deliv- 
ered, and received with affectionate pleasure. I thank you for 
your remembrance of my Sir Walter Raleigh propensity, and 
while smoking the beautiful pipe, shall often in my reveries 
transport myself to Germany, sit by your side and convei-se with 
you. I am just interrupted, and must close. I will write you a 
long letter the moment I get to Yicksburg. Stay in Europe as 
long as you please. Carry out all the plans you have at heart, 
and believe me, nothing can afford me greater happiness than to 
assist you in their accomplishment. I would have added another 
sheet, but have not time. God bless you, my dear boy. Write 
me often. 

Yours affectionately, 

Seabgent. 



TO HIS SISTEES. 

Nkw Yoke, August SO, 1840. 

Deab Giels: 

As I leave to-morrow, I must drop you a line, 
and yet have hardly time to do so, I am so much interrupted. 
We arrived here safe after a pleasant journey, which mother 
bore much better than any of us anticipated. She is now 
in fine health and spirits, and will, I do not doubt, enjoy 
her visit much. I have determined to go by sea for the 
purpose of avoiding any farther political annoyance. I leave to- 
morrow in the packet-ship Auburn, for New Orleans. I wish I 
could embrace you both before going. I feel quite melancholy at 
leaving you, and do not see how I shall get along without one of 
you with me. Suppose you spend the winter with me alter- 
nately, ni take good care of you, and you shall keep house for 
me. What do you think, Anna— will you take " Cub Castle"! 
You can tell Abby what sort of a place it is. 

VOL. II. §* 



178 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

Let me insist upon your writing me very often — it cannot be 
too often. Your letters are to me the greatest source of plea- 
sure. One word about pecuniary matters ; I shall be very much 
mortified, if you do not use my purse precisely as if it was your 
own — not only mortified, but deeply offended. And now, my 
dearest sisters, God bless you. I love you very much, and am 
proud and happy in your affection. I shall write you as soon 
as I get home. Should any letters come for me, direct them 
to Vicksburg. 

Your affectionate brother, 

Seaegent. 



TO HIS SISTER ANNA. 

Vicksburg, September 24, 1840. 

My Dear Sister : 

I arrived here yesterday, after rather a pleasant 
passage, and find my health somewhat improved, though by no 
means entirely restored. The weather, while at sea was delight- 
ful ; unusually so for the season of the year. I stayed but a 
few hours in New Orleans. At Natchez I arrived in the night, 
and left early in the morning. Of course I saw none of our 
friends, except Mr. Harris, who came up to Vicksburg with me. 
From him I heard concerning the good people of Natchez. They 

are all well. Mrs. M is in the country ; the rest of them, 

I believe, are at home. Nothing has occurred w^orth mentioning 
since you left, unless you so consider the marriage of Miss N. 
Here in Vicksburg the folks are horridly dull and gloomy from 
the liard times, which seem even worse than ever. Judge 
Guion and family are pretty well. I have not yet culled on any 
other of your friends, but learn they are well. There is no gossip 
here worth relating. I expect Mr. D. home to-day. I found him 
in New York, much to my surprise. He started home before me, 
by the way of the lakes, in company with Doctor G 's fami- 
ly. From what observation I could make, I take it he is going 
to make a fool of himself— in other words, marry. Well, he has 
^t least the sanction of example from the majority of i)eople, 



LETTERS. 179 

and perhaps, after all, those are the fools who don't marry. Poll 
tics are absorbing all attention here now. I shall be compelled 
to canvass the State until the election (1st Monday of Novem- 
ber), after which, thank Heaven, I shall have some quiet. I 
start for the interior in the course of two or three days. You 
can't tell how much I shall miss you this winter. I feel very 
gloomy, and am sorry to find a tendency to melancholy fast 
overcoming my natural spirits. It is the worse, because I can 
trace it to no particular cause. It broods over me like a black 
cloud. I sometimes wish I could lie down, go to sleep, and not 
wake. Your presence always did much to drive away the dark 
evil spirit. I will trust, however, that rest, and a return to or- 
dinary business, will restore mental as weU as bodily health. 
You girls must write to me often — your letters must supply your 
absence. I suppose mother will be with you by the time this 
letter arrives. I trust she has had a pleasant time in New 
York. Portland will seem dull to you this winter, after the va- 
riety of your last year's life. You must be especially careful of 
your health. Abby must see to it that you are not imprudent. 
She is not as careless of exposure to the weather as you aro. 
Good-bye to you, dear girls. I shall write again soon. 

Yours affectionately, 

Seaegent, 

His return South was waited for by his political friends 
with the utmost impatience. He was a Whig candi- 
date for Presidential elector in Mississippi, and as such, 
was expected to canvass the State. The Louisianians, too, 
were ready to intercept him on his way up the river. An 
urgent invitation to attend a grand convention at the capi- 
tal of the State was put into his hands the instant he stepped 
ashore at Xew Orleans. An old friend writes him : " I am 
urged on all hands, to use what influence the claims of pri- 
vate friendship may give me, in' seconding the wish of the 
whole public here that you should accept the invitation to 



180 , MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

our great gathering on the 28th inst. The people speak of 
your northern tour as of the brilliant flight of a comet, and 
they are as anxious to see you as they would be to catch a 
glimpse of such a glorious luminary. If you come, I beg 
you to make my log cabin your castle." 

The following letters will show how hard he toiled during 
the month of October, and also his opinion of the election, 
when it was over. What he says of the superior chances 
of political success, which belong to men of ordinary ability, 
has been signally illustrated and confirmed in the subse- 
quent history of the country. The Presidential elections of 
1844, 1848, and 1852, seem almost to have decided the 
question, whether a great man is likely again to become out 
Chief Magistrate. Nature herself, however, appears dispos- 
ed for a while to relieve the question of practical point, by 
suspending the growth of really great men on this side of 
the Atlantic. 

TO HIS SIBTER ANNA. 

ViGKSBURQ, 2^ov. 12, 184^. 

My Dear Sister : — 

At length " the wars are all over ; " the election hag 
taken place, and we Whigs consider ourselves in some degree 
paid for our exertions, by the success which has accompanied 
them. You have already learned, I presume, from the public 
journals, our complete victory in Mississippi. We have carried 
the State for " Old Tip," by a majority of nearly three thousand. 
I returned about a week ago, after a most arduous and tiresome 
canvass, and was literally worn out — so much so, that this is the 
parliest moment in which I could muster sufficient energy to 
write a letter. My health has been good enough, but my facul- 
ties of body and mind have been utterly exhausted. I am recov- 
ering, however, my strength and elasticity, and shall soon be 
myself again. I feel as old John Bunyan's Christian did, in 
Pilgrim^s Progress^ when the burden fell from his back. I will 



LETTERS. 181 

never make the same sacrifices to the public, which I have here 
tofore done. But for my political engagements for the last three 
or four years, I should have been able to furnish W. and S. such 
means as they required for their success in business, and long 
ago been relieved from any necessity of professional exertion. As 
it is, I will accomplish the result after a while. I am now very 
busy practising law, and shall have my hands full of business. 
However, enough of business matters, my little sister. I have 
paid a great compliment to your good sense (though a very 
deserved one), by talking so much about them. Don't give 
yourselves any trouble or anxiety about these things. I cer- 
tainly don't deserve the credit I have received if I do not 
manage them all very easily. I have received two letters 
from you since I wrote, one from Portland and the other 
from Boston, or rather Cambridge, where, I am pleased to 
learn, you have been enjoying so delightful a visit at the house 
of your friend, Mrs. G. I was quite taken with your description 
of the domestic happiness you witnessed, and if I could find a 
woman I loved, and who loved me^ and I had nothing else to do, 
perhaps I might follow your advice and marry, myself. I called 
last night on Mrs. Bodley, and also Mrs. Vick, who has just 
returned from Kentucky. They are both well, and talked a great 
deal about you, and regretted much that you did not return this 
winter. They are very much attached to you. I dined at Mr. 
Smedes' yesterday, and called at Mrs. Lake's, but did not find her 
at home. I have seen none of your iSTatchez friends yet, but 
shall go down to N. before long. I am glad mother had so plea- 
sant a visit in New York, and trust her health has not suffered by 
the exertion. How much I would give to come and spend the 
winter with you all. Warm hearts would conquer cold wea- 
ther. But as I can't be with you, I must hear from you often. 
I got a letter from G. the other day. He is very happy, 
and that makes me so too. I have looked over my letter, and 
there is nothing in it worth sending, but as I have not time tc 
write another, you must take this from 

Your affectionate brother, 

Skajegent, 



182 MEMOIR OF S. S. PREXTISS. 

You must write particularly of your health. If the cold wea 
ther aflecta you unkindly, you must come and keep house for me 
next winter. I am in earnest about this. God bless you all. 



TO HIS YOUNGEST BROTHER. 

ViCKSBURG, 2^ov. 12, 1840. 

Dear George : — 

The contest is at length over, and I have leisure at 
last to sit down and commune with my dear brother. Upon my 
return from the North, of which you have already heard, I felt 
it my duty, from every consideration both of patriotism and 
interest, to canvass the State in my capacity of candidate for 
elector. Accordingly, I started out, and for four or five weeks 
before the election, addressed the people in various portions of 
the country, exerting myself to the utmost of my ability, 
mental and physical. I was exhausted by my previous efforts, 
on starting, and returned about a week ago, completely worn 
out; so much so, that this is the first day I have felt able 
to write a letter. My general health has been, and still is good, 
and I am rapidly recovering the use of my faculties. I assure 
you, however, that on my return, so severely had my powers 
been taxed, they seemed hardly under the control of volition. 
In none of my previous political campaigns have my energies 
been so severely tested. You will doubtless be gratified to learn 
(if you have not already done so) that success has crowned the 
efforts of the Whigs in this, as almost in every other State. 
Mississippi has gone for " Old Tip " by nearly 3,000 majority. 
No event in history presents a subject more interesting for the 
observation of the politician or the philosopher, than this Presi- 
dential election. All that is serious and ludicrous, all that is 
sensible and foolish, reason, passion, and prejudice, have com- 
bined in producing the result. General Harrison has been 
elected President, I judge from what we have already heard, 
almost by acclamation ; and yet four years ago, the same people, 



LETTERS. 183 

with the same facts as to the characters of the two men before 
them, rejected him, and chose Mr. Van Buren. General Harrison 
is, I doubt not, a good man and a patriot ; and, I believe will 
conduct his Administration so as to restore purity to the 
Government, and prosperity to the people ; but he is a very 
ordinary man. 

His election, however, has convinced me that a man of ordi- 
nary ability, in a free government, has, in time of peace, a 
better chance of political success, at least in attaining the chief 
magistracy, tlian a man of great and acknowledged talent. The 
people in a Republic have a jealousy and fear of commanding 
and superior intellects, and will not, except in some desperate 
emergency, such as war or revolution, trust them with the 
highest office of the country. If I recollect right, such was the 
case in the ancient Republics. They called upon their great 
men when in great straits, not from choice, but from necessity. 
However, I did not intend to philosophize myself, but merely to 
state that it was a good subject for reflection. I am heartily 
rejoiced at the result, and that it is over. I have fought through 
the war, and feel now entitled to an honorable discharge. I 
have returned to the practice of the law, which will, I trust, 
enable me before long " to take up the stitches " (to use an old 
woman's phrase) which I have dropped while engaged in politics. 
Till ray pecuuiary affairs are placed beyond reach of accident, 
I shall not again quit business. I received your letter from 
Berlin, and sympathize with you in the pleasure afforded by 
your summer rambles. I would I could have been with you; 
my gratification would have been as great as your own. You 
ask if I saw your friend S and conversed with him in rela- 
tion to your plans. I saw him, but only for a moment 
at a time, and had no conversation with him. But what- 
ever your plans may be, they are mine. Nothing has occurred, 
or can (excepting iny death), which can interfere with their 
accomplishment, so far as my co-operation is concerned. In 
pecuniary matters you already understand my wishes and 
ability, neither of which are changed. On that subject, once for 
all, my dear brother, put your mind at ease. "Whenever it shall 



184 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

be necessary to take that matter into consideration, I will not 

hesitate to inform you. When you write again, unfold your 

wishes and views, if they have undergone any change. I had a 

sweet letter from Anna, a day or two since. She M^as on a 

visit to Mrs. G., at Cambridge, Mass., where she appeared to 

be enjoying herself much. I miss her exceedingly, and but for 

mother and Abby, would try and have her out' here again. I 

sometimes feel very lonely, and almost determine to go back to 

Portland, become a boy again, fish in the Great Brook, and 

live and die at home. I know not that I shall ever have a home 

elsewhere. Your friends about Yicksburg are all well, Mr. 

Smedes, Judge Guion, &c. &c. Pray write me very often, and 

not attribute to neglect any infrequency in my letters, for business 

almost destroys my capacity for other matters. Pleasant hours 

to you, my brother. 

Yours affectionately, 

Seaegent. 



THE YEAR 



1841. 185 



CHAPTER XIX. 

Domestic Correspondence — His Marriage — Letters — His C jfS" 'n Relation to th< 
Gubernatorial Election of 1S43 — Visit and Letter from I. .iry Clay — Letters. 

^T. 82-4. 1841-3. 

We now approach the most eventful period of Mr. 
Prentiss' personal history. The year 1841 was the darkest 
in his life ; bnt near its close, it was suddenly brightened 
by a star of promise, which attended him all the rest of his 
mortal journey. It is plain, that the knowledge gained in 
his political career, was chiefly of that kind which only 
*' incre.asetk sorrow;-' while disclosing the depths of human 
selfishness and folly, it afforded nothing to satisfy the crav- 
ings of a mind like his. The applauses of the multitude, as 
we have seen, he estimated according to their real value. 
His pecuniary embarrassments wore increasing ; his health, 
too, began to show signs of failure ; while his disappoint- 
ment and disgust at the world were fast deepening into 
downright misanthropy. Yet his affections, though a 
''sealed fountain'^ to most of his intimates, were still pure 
and strong ; they only wanted a home in order to spring 
forth in all the ardor and beauty of his earliest years. 

But the following letters throw so clear a light upon this 
point, and upon the whole inner life of their author, that 
they need no interpreter : — 



186 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

TOHISMOTHEE. 

New Orleans, Jan. 11, 1841. 

My Deae Mother : — 

I doubt not you are surprised, both at my delay 
in writing and at my writing from this place. I have been here 
about three weeks, and each day have intended to perform the 
pleasant duty of informing you of my well being. * * * 
So much for business. And now, how do you do, ray dear 
mother, and my sweet sisters ? You know not how dear you 
are to me, how blank and pointless the pursuits of this life 
appear when unconnected with you. I have thought of you a 
thousand times since I have been in this city, and almost cried 
on Christmas and New Years' Day, because I could not be with 
you. I don't know that I ever felt so lonesome, though I know 
half the people in the city. I think one of these days I shall 
turn boy again, and come home and forget that I ever left it. 

I have had a tolerably pleasant time here, dining out almost 
every day, and seeing a vast number of people; but I am tired 
of it, and shall return to Yicksburg to-morrow, Avhere I expect 
to have the pleasure of finding letters from you all. Tell Anna 
I shall write her as soon as I get to Y., and tell her all the news : 
how Mr. D. has got married, and taken possession of " Cub 
Castle ;" and how, if I could find a woman half as sweet as 
my own dear sisters, I should be tempted to follow his example ; 
and how I don't expect ever to have such good fortune, &c. &c. 
By-the-by, Anna, Mrs. M. has been here two weeks, and so has 
Mrs. W. I have seen them frequently and they have made 
very kind inquiries about you. Oh, how I do wish you were 
here ; you know I treated you very badly in not bringing you 
here last winter. But you shall come and see me again, and 
I will atone for that neglect. But stop, I am going to write 
you a nice letter from Yicksburg, and it won't do for me to 
open my budget now. So good-bye. I kiss you all, and wish 
you a happy, happy new year. 

Your affectionate son, 

Seaegent, 



LETTERS. 181 

TO HIS YOUNGEST BEOTHEE. 

ViCKSBURQ, Jan. 15, 1841. 

My Deae Beothee : — 

I have just returned from New Orleans, where 1 
was detained nearly a month in arranging some business matters. 
I would not write until my return, expecting to find letters from 
you awaiting me here. In this I was not disappointed. Yours 
of the 21st November had arrived, and I again had the gratifica- 
tion of being assured of your welfare and happiness, both of 
which constitute no small part of my own. Indeed, I could 
almost envy you the excellent spirits which you enjoy, and 
which are even proof against the gloomy clouds and dense fogs 
which, to my vision, ever envelope the regions of metaphysical 
philosophy. I wonder much at the deep interest you take in 
the disquisitions of the schoolmen. Metaphysics seem to me to 
constitute a country, in which the further you penetrate the 
less you see, becoming every moment more sterile, and at last 
utterly forbidding any advance ; an atmosphere which becomes 
rarer as you fly, until your pinions, whether of reason or imagi- 
nation, refuse support, and you fall fluttering to the earth; 
clouds, briglit and gorgeous only upon their edges and exterior. 
Ha ! lia ! I see you hold up your hands, in holy horror at this 
tirade against your favorite pursuit.* Well, my dear boy, I mean 

* This is not exactly the place to assert the dignity of this ancient science. But 
a few words respecting the classical and scholastic worthies, mentioned in the 
next sentence, may not be irrelevant. There is reason to believe that, in later 
rears, Mr. Pkentiss himself rated at a much higher value an acquaintance with 
Iheir pages. The works of Plato formed one of the last additions to his library. 
*' Those," says Judge McCaleb, of the U. S. D. Court, " those who enjoyed with 
him the pleasures of social intercourse, are aware with what humility and venera- 
tion he paid his devotions at the shrine of ancient genius. No man with all 
his admiration of modern excellence, was more prompt in according superiority to 
the master spirits of antiquity." 

The habit, once so fashionable in the literary world, of referring to the renowned 
thinkers of the Middle Ages only in the way of ridicule, is happily growing obso- 
lete. It is now generally admitted by those qualified to judge in the case, that, with 
all their faults and errors, they were truly great men, and that they laid 
posterity under lasting intellectual obligations. They formed, indeed, the neces- 
sary connecting links between the ancient and the modern world of Thought. 
Their writings are noble monuments of logical culture, dialectic power, and 
theological reflection. Let me cite, on this point, a few words from Leibnitz, 



188 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

no offence against " divine philosophy," and ask pardon of PlatO; 
Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, Duns Scotus, and yourself. But, in 
sober truth, are you not devoting too much time to this study ? 
Have yon made yourself sufBciently acquainted with history and 
biography, especially the former? These are the great store- 
houses, from whence to draw, not only lessons of practical know- 
ledge, but also the food for philosophy herself — the subjects for 
reflection. '- It is useless to have a mill without corn to grind ; 
equally so to have philosophy without knowledge. The reason 
why I make these suggestions is, that in the accounts you have 
given me of your studies, I do not remember that you have ever 
mentioned history, biography, or general politics — by which I 
mean the philosophy and science of government as it actually 
exists in the world. Not that I suppose you ignorant on any of 
these points, I know the contrary ; but I wish you to become 
much more than a subtile metaphysician. I wish to see you a 

Having spoken somewhat severely of the errors of the Schoolmen, he imme- 
diately adds, with a generous warmth and fairness so characteristic of that 
eminent philosopher : — 

" Quare etiam, sicubi mihi aliquid durius hie currente calamo excidit, id de tem- 
porum magis miserabili fato, quam hominum ignavia intellectum volo. Illi potiua 
culpandi sunt, qui nunc quoque, inventa fruge, glandibus vesci malunt, et pertinacia 
potius quara ignorantia peccant. Nee vereor dicere, Scholasticos vetustiores 
nonnullis hodiernis et acuniine et soliditate et modestia et ab inutilibus quaes- 
tionibus circumspectiore abstinentia longe praestare : hodierni enim nonnulH quum 
vix quicquam dignum typis addere veteribus possint, hoc unum faciunt, ut allegata 
opinionum cumulent, et innumeras frivolas quaestiones excogitent, et unum argu- 
mentum in multa partiantur, et mutent methodura, et terrainos fingantque atque 
refingant. Ita illis tot tamque grandes libii nascuntur." 

Plato is, in some degree, known and honored among us. But his great pupil and 
rival, it is to be feared, is an utter stranger to most American scholars. The cloud 
of inveterate prejudice still rests upon his once sceptered name. And yet the works 
of no uninspired author, ancient or modern — not excepting the divine Plato him- 
self — are, perhaps, more worthy of being carefully studied and restudied by the 
young men of our Republic. How quickly would such discipline free them from the 
curse of incoherent, loose thinking ! The eternal Ideas of Plato have visited the 
earth, and become enshrined in our Christian Faith and Bible. But the profound 
sense, the marvellous tact, discrimination, and practical sagacity, the observing 
eye, and scientific spirit of the immortal Sta.ryrite, can be found only in his own 
matchless pages. It is a popular impression that Aristotle was only a Grecian Duns 
Scotus — a subtile, hair-splitting metaphysician ; and quite naturally, therefore, all 
the scholastic follies are imputed to him. Leibnitz, alluding to this imputation, 
remarks : — " Quum tamen nostro seculo post tot in Aristotclem doctissimorum et 



LETTERS. 189 

wise, practical man, acquainted with the past history of the 
world, and able to make such knowledge subservient to its hap- 
piness. I wish to see you possess those general stores of 
information on all subjects which, if ten years younger, I would 
myself strive to obtain. I would not undertake any study 
without making myself master of it ; but then I would make 
myself master of as many as possible. But enough on this 
subject. I do not intend to act as your Mentor, nor indeed am 
I capable ; for I, every day, feel more deeply my own deficiencies 
in knowledge. I have the most entire confidence in your own 
good sense and judgment as to the direction of your studies, and 
do not wish you to allow your own opinions to be biased by 
anything I have said. I got a sweet letter from home yester- 
day ; the dear folks were all well, as I trust they may long 
continue to be. I miss Anna's society much, and but on mother's 

prioris barbariei dissiraillimorum interpretum curas nihil sit compertius, quam Aris- 
totelem omnis illius ineptiae purum et insontem esse, qua Scholastici passim inqui- 
nantur. Errores ejus quicunque sunt, tales tamen sunt, ut facile internoscas 
lapsus viri niagni et in rerum luce versati, a vertiginosis deceptionibus imperiti 
alicujus claustralis." 

Aristotle is called by Dante, " The Master of those who know ;" and he has, 
indeed, been oije of the chief teachers of the human mind. His writings, which are 
still instinct with the freshness, power and genial life of Grecian intelligence, have 
been the meditation and delight of such scholars and thinkers as Hooker, Burke, 
Niebuhr, Hegel, Coleridge and Arnold — to say nothing of the great men, who sat at 
his feet in ancient and mediasval times. His Ethics, Rhetoric and Politics cannot 
be too highly recommended to the attention of the youthful student. He, especially, 
who aspires to public life, and would learn how to combine the manly grace and 
wisdom of Athens with the energy and freedom of our American oratory, should 
place those invaluable works among the manuals of his art. Mr. Justice Coleridge 
writes concerning the lamented Dr. Arnold : 

" He cited the maxims of the Stagyrite as oracles. I never knew a man, who 
made such familiar, even fond use of an author ; it is scarcely too much to say that 
he spoke of him as of one intimately known and valued by him ; and when he was 
selecting his son's University, with much leaning for Cambridge, and many things 
which at the time made him incline against Oxford, dearly as he loved her, Aris- 
totle turned the scale ; 'I could not consent,' said he, 'to send my son to a Univer- 
sity where he would lose the study of him altogether.' " And in one of his letters, 
Dr. Arnold says: "I am getting pretty well to understand the history of the 
Roman kings, and to be ready to commence writing. One of my most useful 
books is dear old Tottle's (Aristotle's) Politics ; which give one so full a notion of 
the state of society and opinions ii old times, that by their aid one can pick out 
the wheat from the chafif in Livy with great success." — Ed. 



190 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

account would bring the girls out here to live with me. I am 
now very busily engaged in professional business, and do not 
intend to cease my labors again until I can do so permanently. 
It will take me perhaps a couple of years to place my affairs upon 
a proper footing. My practice is lucrative, and will continue to 
be so, though at present it is difficult to realize much from it. 
It will count, however, after a while, I will write again soon, 
and beg you will write me often. Your letters are a source 
of much gratification to me. 

Ever your affectionate brother, 

Seaegent. 



TO HIS SISTER ANNA. 

Jackson, January Zlst, 1841. 
My Dear Sister: — 

I fear I am getting to be a confirmed promise breaker. 
I told you in my last, from New Orleans, that I would write you 
on getting home, and yet nearly three weeks have elapsed, 
without the redemption of my word. The fact is, I have been 
overwhelmed with cares and business. So soon as I reached 
Yicksburg, I bad to come out here to attend the courts, since 
which, labor and low spirits have deterred me from writing. I 
will not liowever delay any longer, I found a sweet letter from 
you on my return from Xew Orleans, and within a few days, 
have received another written on the last day of last year, 
for which, and its affectionate wishes and warm feelings, I 
thank you from the depths of my heart ; you are a sweet, good 
girl, and so is Abby, and I love you much and shall love you 
always. You and Abby must each write me as often as you can ; 
your sweet letters are very grateful to me, By-the-by, though 
you excel any one I know in the kind and gentle art of let- 
ter-writing, your epistles are not always exempt from criti- 
cism. I do not mean in sentiment or idea, but in words. So 
I will turn pedagogue again, my dear, and give you a lesson. 
You use too often the adverb "very;" it precedes almost 
every adjective used. Such frequent repetition is not only 
objectionable for its monotony, but actually weakens the idea 



LETTERS. 191 

it is intended to strengthen. To use " very " so often is a very 
bad habit. Well now, am I not an impertinent boy, to criticise 
those who write so much better than myself. My only excuse 
is, that your sweet letters approach so near perfection, that I 
wish them to attain it. This is the only fault I now think 
of; should I perceive any more, I shall not hesitate to point 
them out to you. I had quite a pleasant time, at least a portion 
of it, in New Orleans. I had been there a week when Mrs. 
M. and Mrs. W. carae down. I did not stop at Natches, 
and was not aware of their intention of visiting New Orleans 
tintil I heard they were in the city. I was compelled by 
business, to leave several days before them, and thus lost the 
pleasure of accompanying them up the river. I saw a good 

deal of them and also of Miss . The latter is xery 

beautiful, but so silent and shy that I make but little progress in 
my acquaintance with her. Indeed, either from diffidence or 
dislike, or perhaps from my own uncouth advances, it seems to 
me she rather shuns my society. Perhaps I may as well make 
a clean breast of it, and tell you my feelings in relation to this 
young lady — both as you have invited my confidence, and 
because from the shrewdness of your sex, I suspect you know 
already as much about the matter as I do, and because, if 
I should make a fool of myself, I wish some one to pity and 
sympathize with me, instead of laugljing at me ; and for all 
these reasons I know no better confidant than yourself, my 
sweet sister. Well, then, I am not exactly in love with the 
aforesaid fair lady, but it would require but a small touch tt 
make me fall into it, over head and ears. Her image is con 
tinually bobbing its pretty face, into mine, even when engaged 
in the most serious business, and could I become certain that the 
soul is as fair as the body that enshrines it — that the jcwei 
is worthy of the casket that contains it— and then could I find 
the shghtest feeling of afl^ection, responsive to my own, I would 
rejoice in laying my heart and fortunes at her feet. Without 
the latter requisite, the others would be useless. I would 
marry no woman on earth, who did not love me for myself alone, 
and not for honor, station, or wealth. Neither beauty,' Intel* 



192 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

ligence, nor accompfishments, nor all united, conld tempt me to 
marry a woman who accepted rae — not because sbe loved me, 
but because it was a good match. I have ever yearned for 
affection; I beheve it is the only thing of which I am avari- 
cious. The necessities of life, business, politics, and the excite- 
ments connected with them, have heretofore in some degree 
occupied my mind and held in suspense, but not satisfied this 
craving, this hunger of the heart. But such objects have 
ceased to interest me. I am becoming rash and almost reckless 
of the ordinary objects of human pursuit. I do in honest 
truth believe that 1 ought to marry. If I do not in the 
next two years, I never shall ; and if I do not, as soon as I can 
arrange my fortunes, T shall become a wanderer upon the earth, 
and, like an unquiet spirit, flit about till death shall afford me the 
opportunity of finding out whether warm hearts and generous 
aftections meet with a readier response in the next world than 
in this. In good sooth, gentle sister, I see little prospect of my 
becoming anything but a crusty old bachelor. My taste is too 
fastidious, and my feelings too sensitive to afford me much expec- 
tation of success. Indeed, I have never before met a lady who 
caused the slightest fluttering in my breast, or the most remote 
inclination to woo and wed. And though, in the present instance, 
I must confess my fancy has been struck, and my feehngs more 

enlisted than I was aware of, yet I have no doubt that Miss 

would look upon my suit, not only with indifference but abso- 
lute dislike. Well, I have a tolerably tough heart, and it 
shall not break for a bright eye and a ruddy lip, belong they to 
whom they may; and one thing I know full well, that though 
I may find little love or affection in the rest of the world, I 
can always turn to my dear good mother, my sweet and gentle 
sisters, and my kind and true-hearted brothers, and feel that I 
am not alone, even though they live far distant from mo. 
But enough of this ; you see what you have got by prying into 
my secrets. I have run through one sheet, and shall have to 
inflict upon you a double letter. I wished a thousand times 
you had been with me in New Orleans. It would have 
been delightful, wouldn't it? Mrs. M. and all of them spoko 



LETTERS. 193 

of it often. By-the-by, did I tell you in my last, that Mr. D. 
and wife, and Mrs. G., came to New Orleans while I was 
there? They only stayed two or three days, and came home in. 
the same boat with me. "When we got to Vicksburg, Mr. D., 
having said nothing to me on the subject, I felt a delicacy in 
going up to " Cub Oastle ;" so I went to the hotel, and, as it 
rained badly, did not go out for two days. On the second day 
I got a long letter from Mr. D. begging me to come home and 
take my rooms. He apologized for not having said anything 
about it, on the ground that he never dreamed of usurping the 
house, and that he did not expect to live there himself, only till 
he could look around him and make other arrangements. 
I went up, took my chamber and one of the parlors, came out 
here the next day, and when I return sball feel quite domesti- 
cated at the "Oastle." In the course of a year, I shall pro- 
bably have it all to myself; and then you must come out and keep 
house for me — what say you ? I shall be so lonesome keeping 
house all by myself. Come, do now, that's a nice good little 
sister. We have had the most detestable weather I ever saw. 
This is the last day of January, and we have had but two fair 
days during the whole month. It has been rain, rain, rain, for 
almost forty days and nights. I have not seen any of your 
friends in Vicksburg since I wrote. Judge Guion and family 
are as well as usual. I wrote mother a letter from Kew Orleans 
which I trust has reached you safely. You must have lost one 
of my letters by the great mail robbery. I am glad Abby la 
going to New York, and trust she will have a pleasant trip 
of it. I will write her there. — Much love to you all, from 

Your affectionate brother, 

Seargent, 



TO THE SAME. 

YiCKSBURQ, March 27, 1841. 

My Dearest Sister : — 

I am in arrears to you for two letters. I did not 
receive either of them until a few days since. I cannot tell how 

TOL 11. 9 



194 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

much I thank yon for them, especially the last. I cried like a 
child while reading it, and even now the tears stand in my eyes, 
as I think of its expressions of affection, sympathy, and good 
sense. You cannot talk with me too freely, though there are 
few whom I permit to know my feelings on any subject of the 
heart, or from whose sympathy I would not turn with disgust. 
I have many friends whom I esteem, with whom I daily associ- 
ate, and have for years, who know nothing of my heart, its real 
wishes and sympathies. Still I have not, like Pharaoh, hard- 
ened it ; never did it abound, more than at present, with affec- 
tionate yearnings. But I fear from long intercourse with the 
world, and a continually growing dislike for it, I have hardened 
my manners, and too rigidly encased my feelings, not wishing to 
expose them to the vulgar gaze of those who could neither un- 
derstand nor appreciate them. Indeed, the man in the " Iron 
Mask " did not more effectually conceal the features of his face, 
than I have many of those of my character. Most of those who 
know me — or suppose they do — think me exceedingly ambitious, 
and that I have but little personal regard, especially towards 
your sex. Now it is and always has been the very reverse. I 
have no personal ambition, and never had, at least for the ob- 
jects of it. It is true, I have enjoyed great pleasure, sometimes, 
in the excitement of political pursuit ; in " the rapture of the 
strife " ; but nothing further. I laugh at those who look upon 
the uncertain, slight, and changeable regards of the multitude, 
as worthy even of comparison with the true affection of one 
warm heart; and I would sacrifice more, do more, and dare 
more, to win the love of a woman (I mean, of course, of one 
whom I loved), than I would to wield the sceptre of Napoleon. 
But I did not intend to give you my portrait, as you know the 
original so well, and will therefore leave it in its unfinished 
state. Let us go back and start again. Fow, my sweet sister, 
cannot talk to me, or write, too freely. You can have no 
thoughts to know which would not cause me pleasure, unless 
that knowledge caused you pain. Always write me as you have 
just done, and, if such a thing were possible, my love towards 
you would increase ; but that is not possible. Everything you 



LETTERS. 195 

said to me, and about me, was balm tc» ray lonely and wounded 
spirit. I accept most gratefully your kind offer to come and 
cheer me up next winter. I cannot say yet, whether I can make 
you mistress of " Oub Castle," as I do not know positively 
whether Mr. D. expects to take another residence in the 
fall ; that, however, was the understanding, when I came here. 
If he does not, I shall^ for I intend you shall keep house for me 
if it be in a cottage. How happy we shall be. And I shall 
have no politics to attend to, and shall have so much more 
time to be with you than when you were here before. I 
know not how much to thank mother and Abby for sparing you. 
I wish you could all come. Why cau't you, and hve here? At 
all events, I don't believe I shall let you go back. I may not be 
able to come after you ; but if not, we will make some other 
arrangement. In the meantime, for fear you might change your 
mind, which I have heard young ladies sometimes do, I close 
with your offer, and that part of the thing is settled. 

And now, I suppose you would like to hear something more 
of myself, and whether I am in love or out of it, since my last; 
as there has been plenty of time for either. Well then, heigho I 
I believe love is a quagmire, wliere the more one struggles to 
extricate one's self, the deeper one sinks ; and if that answer is 
not satisfactory, I say that I feel no better ; and if that won't 
do, lest you die in ignorance, dear sister, I answer that I thinJs 
of a fair (oh 1 how exquisitely fair) young lady, whom you wot 
of, twice as often as I did when I wrote you last ; and that I 
have absolutely nearly finished a very doggerel piece of poetry 
(which I shall burn as soon as finished), the sole object of which 
seems to be, as far as I can judge, to ascertain how many words 
rhyme with . Well, my dear brother, that is all satisfac- 
tory ; now tell us what progress are you making — have you seen 
her? or written to her ? and does she know tliat there is such a 
man as you in the land of the living ? Well, dear sister, I can- 
not tell you a lie. I have neither seen her, nor written to her, 
nor do I believe she knows that there is such a man as myself 
in the land of the living. Why, Searg, what a fool you are I 
I know it, sister. Why, you dolt, do you expect lier to come 



196 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

and see you ? No. I've no patience with you — you're so stupid 
— what have you done, and are you going to do ? Don't get 
into a passion, my fair questioner, and I'll tell you all I know 
about it. I visited Natchez three or four weeks ago, and stayed 

there a week. I lost the pleasure, however, of seeing . 

She had gone to New Orleans on the very day I arrived. I saw 
Mrs. W. several times, and spent one evening at her house. 
She inquired kindly for you. She is, I think, a most excellent, 
and uncommonly intelligent lady. I returned in ill-humor to 
Vicksburg, since which time, business of the most onerous char- 
acter has commanded all my time and attention. And now what 
am I going to do ? I wish you would go to a fortune-teller and 
find out, for I don't know. I had half made up my mind to try 
and win her affections ; but then what chance do I possess, to • 
tally destitute as I am of all accomplishments either of person 
or manner ; so little accustomed to society as hardly to know its 
ordinary rules of etiquette ; ignorant of music, painting, and all 
those things in which she most delights. Why should I court 
the mortification to my pride and sensibihty, of finding my plain 
and homespun qualities scorned for the foppery of fools. "Why 
should I expeot a young girl to love me for qualities, which per- 
haps she has never thought of, while I am deficient in those 
which have the greatest influence in the eyes of your sex, 
whether young or old. Bah! I was a fool to fall in love; 
however, I ought not to blame myself, for I could not help 
it; and at any rate, I have become so tired of this solitary, 
lonesome life — my mind has gnawed upon itself so much — 
that perliaps a little torment of another sort would be a relief. 
Well, sister mine, you see what you have got by being made a 
confidant. One good thing will come out of it anyhow, if you 
will only continue to write me such nice, sweet, long letters. I 
shall not be sorry, whatever may be the result. Don't you 
think I am a great goose ? If so, don't be afraid to say so. I 
wish you were here now — oh ! how I do wish it ! But you will 
come next fall, won't you ? and be to me 

The antelope whose feet shall bless 
With her light step my loneliness. 



LETTERS. 19t 

But my candle burns low, and it is past the witching hour of 
night. You ar«, I trust, at this moment enjoying pleasant 
dreams, perhaps of your poor brother. But, whether sleeping 
or waking, God bless you and our dear mother, and all of you^ 
Good night — good night. My love loads this last hne from 

Your affectionate 

Seaegent. 



TO HIS YOUNGEST BROXnER. 

TiCKSBURG, April 9, 1841. 

Dear George : 

Your long, kind, and affectionate letter of January 
was received some two weeks since, and I take to myself great 
shame that I have not answered it at an earlier period. But in 
truth I have not been well, and the little time in which I have 
been able to write, has been entirely absorbed by business. I 
Lave received no letter for which I so heartily thank you, as 
for this. Indeed, I cannot be very unhappy while I have such 
affectionate brothers and sisters, nor can I do their love such in- 
justice as to say that there is nothing in the world worth living 
for. 

You have written precisely as you should do, as I trust yon 
always will do. You cannot pour into a more sympathizing 
bosom the story of your plans, your wishes, your feelings, joys 
and griefs. I am delighted to learn of the improved state of 
your health. You must be careful of yourself, and not permit 
too much application to study, to impede an entire restoration. 
I have not the slightest objection to the plans you have marked 
out for the next five years of your life ; how could I, after you 
had defended them so stoutly ? Indeed, my dear brother, I am 
delighted that you look forward to so much pleasure, through so 
long a period ; and that you aim at such high and rational en- 
joyment. I trust you will travel happily for the five years you 
Lave allotted, through the interesting and varied paths you have 
pointed out ; and when, retired from '' the noontide sultriness,'- 



i98 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

you are " crouched among fallen columns," musing with melan- 
choly philosophy upon the past, whose mighty shadows rise in 
dim array around you, I will, in fancy at least, be with you, 
though not I fear in reality. My travelling days are over, George, 
and I care but little, either for the ghosts of past generations, 
or the palpable forms of the present. ' 

Still, I thank you kindly, a thousand times, for the plans you 
have so affectionately traced out for me. Once, the prospect of 
realizing them would h'ave made my eyes sparkle, and my pulse 
thrill with rapture ; but, when I read your letter, I wept. For 
the next two or three years I shall practice law, for the purpose 
of repairing the dilapidation of my fortune, produced by my 
political career. This, however, is a matter of but little inter- 
est, and will be easily accomplished ; for my professional prac- 
tice bids fair to be more lucrative than it has ever before. Af- 
ter that, I know not what I shall do. I have no fixed purpose, 
and shall leave it to be decided by my feelings at that period. 
But enough, I do not wish to mar your happiness by my mel- 
ancholy moods, and hereafter I will write more cheerfully, 
whether I feel so or not. I shall be happier too, by-and-by. 
"What do you think? Dear Anna is coming out, to stay with me 
next fall and winter — to live with me, and keep house for me ! 
Isn't that fine ? I doubt not I shall be as merry as a cricket 
when she comes. I wrote her some time ago inviting her, and 
she says that mother has consented, and she has consented, and 
so the matter is all settled. I shall not be able, I fear, to go on 
after her. If not, I shall get William or Samuel to come out 
with her. It would be a fine trip for William, and an agreeable | 
relaxation from business. How much it would add to our hap- ; 
piness, if you could be with us. Can't you put on your "seven- ^ 
league boots," and step over and see us? We shall be very glad 
to see Mr. Gr. L. P., we assure him, and he may stay all night, ^-- 
ftnd all next day and night, and as long afterwards as he pleases. 
Won't it be grand ? Anna and I keeping house together ! How 
comfortable she shall be, and how kindly and carefully I will 
ireat her. And now, my dear boy, I have scribbled over a 
iheet, which contains so little of what I intended to say, that I 



LETTERS. 199 

am almost ashamed to send it. I would not, but that it meets 
only a brother's eye. When I write again, I will speak of so 
much of your letter as relates to myself more fully. In the 
meantime, consider this last line loaded with love and kind 
wishes from your affectionate brother, 

S. S. P. 



TO THE SAME. 

VlCKSBURG, JWM 10, 1841. 

Deae Geoege: 

I am in arrears to yon for two letters, one of 
March 29, and the other which I received to-day, of May 7. 
I know not how it is that I am so continually behindhand in my 
correspondence, especially with you, for I assure you not a day 
passes in which I do not think of you affectionately, and if all 
my thoughts about you were transferred to paper, you would 
have full occupation in deciphering them. 

Since I wrote you last, I have been extremely busy, and, most 
of the time, absent from home. Four years devoted almost exclu- 
sively to political exertion?, have left a considerable gap in my 
life, which I am anxious to fill up. I have paid a pretty high 
price for the little political notoriety which I have attained, and 
regret most sincerely that I ever pursued an object of such small 
intrinsic value. However, I never had any personal ambition, 
and do not recollect the time when I would not have exchanged 
tlie applause of thousands for the love of one of my fellow 
beings. I think I have abandoned politics for ever; at all events 
nothing but a sense of duty (which is not likely to call upon 
me) will ever induce me to resume a pursuit which, however 
adapted to my capacities, is wholly at war with my- feelings and 
inclinations. On returning to business, I find my private affairs 
in a somewhat critical situation, and were it not for the confi- 
ience I feel in being able to extricate myself by my profession 
I should be alarmed at their condition. 

The expenses incident to my various political campaigns, were 
very great, but most of them I have already liquidated, and the 



200 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

remainder would not have cost me six months' labor. Unfor- 
tunately, I find myself largely involved for others, who, 
prostrated by the storm which has swept over all classes in 
this country, have left me as security, to bear a very heavy 
pecuniary burden. I have already paid very large amounts for 
others, and within the last three months, have taken up 
security-debts, by mortgaging my own property, to the amount 
of at least fifty thousand dollars more. This I have done 
to obtain time, and aflford me an opportunity of availing 
myself of my professional exertions. Some of my property 
I have sold, but not to a great extent. The best portion I 
shall be able to save, if my life is spared ; for my profession 
has been and still promises to be very lucrative, and will, I 
think, in the course of two years, or three at the furthest, 
relieve me from all embarrassment. Had it not been for these 
security-debts, which I hold equally binding with my own, I 
should have been able to retire from business in the course 
of the present year. I have said nothing to you heretofore 
on this subject, lest it might annoy you, and I only mention it 
now for the purpose of explaining the necessity which will com- 
pel me for some years to remain at my profession in this 
country. These things Avill not make the slightest change in 
my arrangements with regard to yourself. If it were proper 
they should, I would not hesitate in telling you so. But I have 
so arranged my afl:airs already, that I can carry out all the 
views we have ever any of us entertained, without any injus- 
tice to others ; you will, therefore, continue to carry out your 
plan of study and travel, precisely as you would have done, 
had I not mentioned this matter. The sum I spare you, is not 
one-twentieth part of what I can make annually at my profession, 
which will, I doubt not, be worth at least twenty-five thousand 
dollars a year. In this matter, lest you should entertain any 
scruples or delicacy, I claim to exercise the right of an elder 
brother, and am peremptory upon it. Indeed, my dear George, 
I have no use for money myself, and would not make any 
exertions to rescue my fortunes, were it not for those I love. 
* * * This is a long and somewhat silly epistle ; but if 



LETTERS. 201 

you have not a right to know all about my fortunes and feelings, 
I don't know who has. It is a curious trait in our nature that 
we like to bore our friends with our misfortunes, and you see, 
you are not exempt from the common destiny. Good bye — God 
bless you, my dear brother, is ever the wish of 

S. S. P. 



TO HIS SISTER ANNA. 

New Orleans, July 28, 1841. 

My Deae Anna : — 

I have intended, for some days past, writing you 
a long letter, but am suddenly compelled to return to Vicksburg 
on business, and shall start in an hour, so that I have barely 
time to drop you a line. I have been some three weeks i« New 
Orleans and its vicinity ; engaged partly in business, and partly 
in killing time, which hangs very heavily on my hands this 
summer. 

I am beginning to count the moments, as I look forward to 
your arrival, and sliall become every day more impatient. I 
have just been buying some furniture for our house, and espe- 
cially for your room ; I think you will be pleased with it. As to 
the best route for you to take, I have made considerable inquiry, 
and the result is tliis : should there be a steamship coining to 
Few Orleans at the right time, and you learn by the IST. O. 
papers that the city is healthy, I would advise that course, 
as the most rapid and convenient; next to this, Iwould recom- 
mend the same route which w^e took last summer. I do not 
think the Pittsburg route, or that through Georgia, will do at 
the season of the year in which you will travel. You must con- 
sult your own inclinations and comfort, however, in this mattez*. 
"Write me the moment you have concluded, and start as early as 
you think your health will warrant. But I have not another 
moment to spare, so good bye, and my love to you all. 

Your affectionate 

Seaegejst, 

VOL n. 9* 



20Ji liEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

to HIS YOUNGEST BEOTHEE. 

ViCKSBURG, Aug. 26, 1841. 

DEiJk viiiuKaE: — 

Foi the greater portion of the last two months I have 
been absent from the State, and in consequence did not receive 
your letter of June 12 until a few days since. Though I have 
not been sick, yet my health has not been as good as usual this 
summer. This I attribute to the extreme heat of the weather, 
which has been without precedent. For three months the tem- 
perature has averaged ninety-three or four degrees (Fahrenheit). 
Sometimes it has exceeded a hundred. Such intensity of heat 
has necessarily caused great debility botli in the physical and 
mental system. I have never in my life felt so little capacity for 
exertion. The slightest labor has oppressed me as if it had been 
one of the labors of Hercules. Indeed, I suffered so mucli in 
June, that I determined about the first of July to go to the sea- 
shore, hoping the sea air would prove beneficial in restoring to 
me my usual elasticity. Accordingly, I visited several places on 
the Gulf, but did not find the benefit T had anticipated. I then 
tarried a couple of weeks in New Orleans, and returned home 
twelve days since, thoroug?ily wearied with my whole trip. 

Summer in the country is so entirely destitute of incident, that 
I have nothing worth telling, unless in relation to general poli- 
tical matters, of which, I presume, you are nearly as soon and 
as well informed at Berlin as I am here. My opinion, however, 
may not be uninteresting to you. We are waiting in anxious 
and hourly expectation of learning tlie action of President Tyler 
upon the National Bank Bill, which has already passed both 
branches of Congress. A majority of people seem to think he 
will veto it. I shall not, however, believe it till the act is done. 
Should this special session of Congress fail, through the veto of 
the President, in establishing a bank, it will prove to be, in my 
estimation, a very great national calamity. A bank has been 
the great object of the Whig party. We have fought for it 
during the last ten years. Its establishment would crown the 
labors of the "Whigs, and ensure their control, for a long period 



LETTEKS. 203 

at least, of the affairs of the country. A failure to do this, seals 
the destruction of the Whig party, which will immediately be 
broken up into factions, and probably fall an easy prey to the 
united and unprincipled energies of the Democratic or Loco-foco 
party. This latter party is as dangerous to the institutions of 
this Government as a monarchical one would be. Democracy is 
the enemy of Republicanism ; indeed, of all restraint of constitu- 
tion or laws. Democracy, like the ocean, is continually dashing 
its fierce and lawless waves against the shores which have been 
assigned as its limits. Already do the Constitution and laws, 
those barriers which the wisdom of our fathers opposed to its 
wild action, show fearful marks of its violence. Let the abrasion 
continue much longer, and I fear for the success of our " great 
experiment." May the evil omens be averted ; but I look with 
mucli foreboding upon the prospects of our country. Political 
and moral feeling seem hardly to acknowledge any association 
with each other, and dislionesty in private life flourishes, like a 
fresh and vigorous shoot from the public stock. But enough 
of political philosophy. It is a subject that at present I almost 
loathe to investigate. You speak of the possibihty of your 
paying home a visit next year, and if it will not interfere with 
your views and arrangements abroad, I think it would be well 
for you to do so. It would be a source of great gratification to 
mother and the girls, and I doubt not to yourself also. Yon 
could spend the winter with them, and return to Europe in the 
spring. It is not impossible but that, by that time, I could 
accompany you in a flying trip, returning myself in the ensuing 
autumn. I am looking with eager anxiety for Anna, though I 
do not expect her until the last of October. William comes out 
with her. The only drawback to my enjoyment this winter 
will be, that I shall be compelled, by the pressure of my 
professional engagements, to forego, a great deal of the time, the 
pleasure of her society. How I wish you were to be here to 
tssist me in making her happy. You must excuse me, my dear 
brother, for my carelessness and neglect during che last three or 
four months. I have not been well either in mind or body. 
Hereafter I shall try to do better ; at all events, do not let my 



204 MEMOIR OP S. S. PRENTISS. 

bad example, as a correspondent, operate upon yon. Let ng 
h§ar from you often, and in the most perfect freedom and con- 
fidence. 

Ever yonr affectionate brother, 

Seaegent. 



TO HIS MOTHEE. 

ViCKSBUBG, Aug. 28, 1841. 
My Deae Mothee : — 

It has been a long while since I wrote you last ; 
though my letters to the girls, you know, are the same as if 
addressed to yourself. It seems to me an age since I saw you, 
and I cannot help regretting that I did not go home this summer, 
though my business was really such as to render it impossible. 
However, I look forward with great pleasure to my visit next 
summer, and only wish it was nearer, I am beginning already 
to count the days for Anna's arrival. You cannot think how 
happy I shall be to have her with me this winter, or how much 
I thank you for sparing her. Indeed, I sometimes feel that I 
am doing wrong and acting too selfishly in depriving yon and 
Abby of her society for so long a period. But then again, 
I think it will be beneficial to her health, and afford her plea- 
sure as well as myself. Oh ! if I could only have you all here at 
once, how happy we should all be. I have got the prettiest 
house and the pleasantest situation in the whole State. The 
house is situated on a high hill, and commands the most exten- 
sive and the most beautiful view of the Mississippi River I have 
ever seen. I have six or seven acres of ground attached to it, 
which I intend to have laid off into gardens and orchards. I 
have already a very good garden; but I calculate upon Anna's 
making great improvements, for she tells me she is very fond of 
flowers. I shall have a garden at her command ; so, you see, I 
shall not let her get lazy for want of work. She had better 
bring out some seeds of her favorite flowers, and try how they 
will grow here. 
I stayed in Kew Orleans till the l^st of July, and since that 



LETTERS. 205 

time have been at home. Since my return, my health has 
improved. Indeed, I have not been exactly sick during the 
summer; but the excessive heat debilitated me till I became 
very weak. It has been, without exception, the hottest season 
I ever experienced. The warm weather is now pretty well 
over, and notwithstanding the excessive heat, the health of the 
country about here has been good. My best love to you all. 

Your truly affectionate son, 

Seaegent. 

Immediately after the date of the preceding letter, the 
yellow fever broke out in Vicksburg, and the next two 
months were occupied by him chiefly in tending upon the 
sick and dying, among whom were some of his personal 
friends. One or two of them fell victims to that fearful 
malady in his own house. 

TO HIS SISTER ANNA. 
DeaeAnnA:- Ticksbuko, i^a.. 7, 1S41. 

I have this moment received yours of the 20th 
ultimo, and am glad you have changed your route. I shall 
expect your arrival in New Orleans in two or three days. I am 
very much mortified that I cannot come down for you; 
but one of the most important courts which I attend is in session 
at Jackson, and I have to start in an hour. I came in from 
that place yesterday, in the hope of hearing from you. I had 
previously left a letter to be handed you, if you arrived during 
my absence. Though I consider the sickness pretty well over 
here, yet I dare not let you come till I am certain ; so you must 
stay a few days among your friends at Natchez till I come for 
you, which will be soon. I write this under cover to Mr. Hun- 
tmgton, a friend of mine, whom you met while at Vicksburg, 
and who will pay you every attention. I send you the letter I 
had previously written, because I have not time to write more 
at present. Write me by Mr. H., and believe me ever 

Your most affectionate brother, 

Seaegent. 



206 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

P.S. If Mr. H. considers ]!T. O. healthy, and you and Samnel 
prefer, you can stay there a few days, and I will come down for 
you. 



TOTHESAME. 

ViCKSBURQ, 27bv. 14, 1841. 

Dear Anna: — 

I came in from Jackson this morning, hoping to 
hear of your safe arrival at ITew Orleans. I perceived by the 
papers that you had arrived, but was disappointed in not finding 
any letters. Presently, however, Samuel dropped in and relieved 
me from all doubts or apprehensions. I cannot tell how much 
I am gratified at your safe accomplishment of so much of your 
journey, and can hardly restrain myself from taking the first 
boat for New Orleans. My business, however, for a few days, 
must tyrannize over my inclinations, and to-morrow, instead of 
flying to meet you, I am compelled to return to Jackson, where 
I fear I shall be detained for eight or ten days. Is not this vexa- 
tious ? To me it is terribly annoying. But you must forgive 
me for such apparent neglect, l^othing but the most imperative 
obligations could occasion it. The very moment I can tear 
myself away from my business engagements, I shall hasten to 
seek you. Your time, I trust, will pass pleasantly in the mean- 
while; and I leave it entirely to your own option, to stay in 
New Orleans, or com-e up to Natchez. I have no choice in the 
matter, except that you should consult your own inclinations. 
If you find the city agreeable, perhaps you had better stay there. 
I am delighted to learn that your health has been improved by 
your voyage, for I was afraid you would not prove a very good 
sailor. I am glad you are going to Mrs. W.'s. The family 
are very kind friends of mine, and I think you cannot fail to be 
pleased with them. I have got things pretty well prepared for 
you here ; but still, such an old bachelor as I am, must fall into 
many mistakes, and commit innumerable blunders in making 
arrangements for a lady. So you will, doubtless, have ample 
room both for patience and improvement. Mrs. Vick has sent 
me word that you must come to her house upon your arrival, 



LETTERS. 20 1 

until yon have properly arranged your own. But we will talk 
of such matters when we meet. I think the fever has entirely 
ceased in this place ; there have been no new cases for a week. 
You must write me every day or two until I come down. 

Present my respectful regards to Mrs. W. and Mrs. 
Also remember me to Oapt. 0. whom I had the pleasure 
of seeing in Portland. Take good care of yourself, dear. 



TO THE SAME. 

ViCKSBURG, Non. 21, 1841. 
Dear Anna : — 

I came in from Jackson yesterday, expecting to 
hear from you. I have been disappointed, however ; but I shall 
expect letters by the Ambassador this evening. I go out to 
Jackson again to-day, and shall be able to return some time 
about the middle or last of this week. I shall then immedi- 
ately come after you ; so you may expect to see me in about 
a week from this time. I trust you have enjoyed yourself, and 
will continue to do so. You can't tell how anxious I am to see 
you. I am entirely out of humor at keeping you waiting so 
long. There is nothing new here. It is perfectly healthy. 
Samuel has gone on a three days' hunt after deer, with Mr. Daw- 
son ; so I am all alone to-day. I enclose two letters for you 
from Portland. I won't write anything more as I shall talk with 
you so soon. Take good care of yourself. Remember me kindly 
to my friends, and believe me ever 

Your most affectionate brother, 

Seargent. 



TO HIS MOTHER. 

Natchez, D6c.\ 28, 1841. 

My Dear Mother: — 

You will deem it very strange to receive a letter 
from me, at this time, from this place, when you no doubt 



208 



MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 



suppose that Anna and myself are both safe at home at Yicks- 
burg. Yet so it is; and Anna has not seen Vicksburg yet, 
though she has been nearly three months on her way. 

We left New Orleans about three weeks ago, as Anna wrote 
you from that place. I expected to be detained in this place 
about a week by professional business, but between that 
and some other business of a more interesting character (of which 
you will soon hear from A.), I was not ready to leave for home 
till yesterday morning. But just as we were about to leave, we 
heard of tbe dangerous illness of a lady who resides some twelve 
miles from this place, and who sent for Anna to come and see 
her. She is an old friend of A.'s and mine — Mrs. 'Williams. 
We both went out immediately to her house, and found her very 
ill ; but this morning she was better, and I left Anna there and 
returned to town. To-morrow I shall go after her ; and to-mor- 
row evening, or next day morning, we shall certainly go to 
Vicksburg. 

Anna had written two sheets, which she was about to send, 
but had not time to seal and direct them; she, therefore, 
requested me to write a line, and send it at once. In a day or 
two you will receive a long letter from her, which will explain 
all our actings and doings, and will not, I trust, convey to you 
any information that will prove disagreeable. 

As soon as I get home, I shall write more fully, and will tell 
you some things which I hope will be gratifying to you and 
Abby, as they have been to Anna and myself. Samuel is at 
Vicksburg, well, and enjoying himself very much. We expect 
many letters are awaiting our arrival. 

Your affectionate son, 

Seaegent. 



TO THE SAME. 



Vicksburg, Jan, 29, 1842. 

My Dear Mother: — 

I have been intending, for a week or two past, to 
write you a good long letter, but have, so far, neglected it for two 



LETTERS, 209 

reasons ; first, Anna writes so often, that I knew you had learned 
from her all I wished to tell you ; and secondly, I have been 
absent attending the courts, and so busy, that I have hardly had 
time to write. I came home yesterday from Jackson, and found 
on my arrival a most agreeable surprise. What do you think it 
was, my dear mother? Nothing more nor less than your por- 
trait; and a most admirable one it is, and a more acceptable 
present I could not have received. I would not part with it for 
a treasure. I kissed its dear face, and it seemed to look kindly 
at me, as you always did; and though the lips moved not, I 
thought I could see a blessing on them, just ready to be uttered. 
Anna never told me of it, so that it was wholly unexpected. It 
will be a source of great pleasure to me, and not a day will 
pass, in which I shall not gaze upon it, and think of the dear 
original. I thank you a thousand times for the present. I sup- 
pose A. has told you all about the matter at which I hinted 
in my last. I am going to do as my father did before me, marry 
a good and beautiful girl. "What do you think of it? Will you 
give your consent and blessing? I know you will, and you will 
be pleased, too, with the fair being who is to be my wife. She 
is very beautiful, and as good as she is beautiful, and has already 
learned to love you as a mother, and Abby as a sister. We are 
to be married some time early in March. I expect we shall then 
go immediately to Washington City, where I have some business 
of importance, which will require my attention. Anna is going 
with us, and I do not doubt we shall have a most delightful 
journey. I do not know how long we shall stay in Wash- 
ington, but it will be several weeks. However, Anna has, I 
presume, indeed she tells me so, informed you of everything in 
relation to the affair, and it is unnecessary for me to go into 
particulars. Mary W. is a noble girl, just such a one as you 
all will love, and feel proud of, and her mother is one of the best 
I ever saw, except my own. Anna loves them both dearly, and 
they fully respond to her feelings. Mary has one sister, a little 
girl at school, and two brothers, fine young men of excellent 
character and principles. Indeed, there is no family in the 
country that stands higher, or is more beloved, than Mrs. W.'s. 



210 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

I do not doubt for an instant, that this change of condition will 
prove to me a happy one. Had I lived at home, or had you all 
lived with me here, I might, perhaps, have never thought of 
marrying. But here, far away from those I best love, I have 
become weary of the lonely and desolate life I have so long 
been leading. And now, I shall expect one of the girls to come 
and spend the winter with me every year. What say you, 
Abby ? It will be your turn next winter. Will you come and 
see my sweet wife, and help me make her happy ? 

Anna is in fine health, and, with the exception of an occa- 
sional fit of sadness, in excellent spirits. She seems delighted 
with my success, and future prospects. She is a most notable 
house-wife, and has set the house in such fine order, that its 
future mistress will have but little to do. Her old friends have 
all renewed their acquaintance, and she has her hands full, 
between house-keeping and visiting. I wish you and Abby could 
drop in, and see how cosy and comfortable we are, in our delight- 
ful residence. Indeed I have had half a notion not to let Anna 
go home any more at all. This climate seems exactly suited to 
her constitution. Samuel is off on a hunting expedition; he has 
been gone several days, and we expect him back to morrow or 
next day. He seems to enjoy himself very much. He talks of 
returning to New York in two or three weeks. Well, I have 
gossiped enough, I think, for one time, so good bye to you, my 
dear mother, and to you too, Abby dear. Write me, with your 
own hand, and tell me how you li<ve my plans. Anna joins in 

love. 

Your affectionate son, 

Seargent. 

He was compelled to be absent at Jackson, on professional 
business, during several weeks of January and February. 
But the following extracts from letters to his sister will 
show that his heart was elsewhere : — 

Thanks for your kind note of to-day, short though it was ; and 
double thanks for the sweet inclosure it contained. You cannot 
conceive how slowly the sluggish hours drag themselves along in 



LETTERS. 



211 



this dull place. To lue especially, they seem like so many full- 
grown years ; and I join heartily with you in wishing there was 
no Jackson, to keep brothers from sisters^ and lovers from each 

other. 

I am becoming very impatient, I assure you, and long to leave 
this dreary place, and sit down between yourself and my sweet 
Mary, careless and forgetful of all the strange, cold world around 
us. Do not feel lonesome, dear sister, but keep up your spirits, 
and we shall have happy times, I trust, ere long. Good-bye, 
sweet ; I do not know that I can send this in the morning, but 
will try. 

Shortly after he writes : — 

I had expected to go to Vicksburg this evening, my dearest 
Anna,, but sliall be disappointed. I am compelled to go into 
the country about twenty-five miles on some professional busi- 
ness, and hope to get back in time enougli for the cars to- 
morrow, though possibly you may not see me till the day 
after. There is one comfort, however; the courts have all 
adjourned, and I shall not Lave to return to Jackson again. 
Are you not glad ? I am overjoyed, notwithstanding much of 
my business remains unfinished. 

I received your sweet, aftectionate letter yesterday, my dear, 
dear sister, and it both pleased and pained me. It pleased me to 
read your kind, fond words of aftection, and your sweet and 
generous approval of my love for M. But it pained me to know 
that tlie slightest feeling of sadness mingled with your joy. 
Still I know it is perfectly natural that these shadows should 
occasionally obscure the bright sunshine. In one thing you are 
mistaken, dearest; in supposing you are less necessary than 
heretofore to my happiness. You are mingled with all my 
future prospects, and if I thought my marriage with my own 
dear Mary, would, in one jot or tittle, aflect my love for you, or 
deprive me of any opportunity of enjoying your society, or con- 
ducing to your happiness, I should shrink from the hour, to 
which I now look forward with such joyous anticipations. No ; 
my own dear sister, my love for you is a part of my existence. 
Nothing can eradicate, or diminish it. It burns not less brightly 



212 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

because another glorious lamp burns beside it. My love for 
Mary, which is little less than idolatry, is not greater in its kind 
than my affection for you. I only pray that her love for me 
may be as pure and bright as yours. Indeed, I would, if possible^ 
love you more than ever ; for to you I owe this great happiness 
now in store for me. I was proud, stubborn, reckless, and 
despairing, and should have lost the priceless jewel of sweet 
Mary's love, I do believe, had it not been for you. 

There is an allusion in the following extract, to his reck- 
less exposure of himself, during the ravages of the yellow 
fever in Yicksburg, the preceding autumn : 

I have, from my boyhood, felt that it would be dangerous, if 
not fatal, for me to love. For this reason I have abstained from 
society. I have avoided your sex because I feared them. I knew 
that to love would make me wretchedly miserable or supremely 
happy. Oh ! it makes me shudder to think of the terrible con- 
dition from which I have been rescued — my heart had almost 
turned to stone. I would have shaken the cold, skeleton hand 
of death as readily as that of a brother. I sought this grim, 
stern friend of the unhappy ; but, thank Heaven ! I found him 
not — for what a glorious change has come over me ! Indeed, I 
can hardly believe in the reality of the past few weeks — I 
tremble continually lest I should awake and find it all a dream. 

In another note, alluding to his mother, he adds : — " The 
recollection of her excellence and goodness has preserved 
and cherished all the good qualities, and repressed many of 
the bad ones, which belong to my character." 

On the 3d of March, 1842, he was married to Mary Jane 
Williams, daughter of the late James C. Williams, of 
Katchez. Thus commenced a new and brighter era in 
his life. She, who was to be as a guardian angel to him 
thenceforth, still survives, and, therefore, must these pages 



LETTERS. 213 

be silent concerning many things which might otherwise 
illaminate them with forms of beauty and goodness. The 
written memorials of his love to her, from the hour of their 
betrothment until his death, are worthy to be enshrined in 
amber ; they betoken a purity, depth, and manly nobleness 
of affection, such as do honor to human nature. 

Soon after his marriage he visited "Washington City, 
accompanied by his wife and sister. From that place he 
wrote to his mother : 

Washington Citt, April 11, 1842. 
My Dear Mother: — 

I have delayed, from day to day, writing to you, 
partly because Anna has written so often, and partly from 
having nothing new or interesting to tell you. Indeed, I hardly 
know now what to say, as I presume she has given you a full 
account of my marriage, our trip to New Orleans, our journey 
up the river, as well as everything which has occurred since our 
arrival here. I am very happy indeed, and do not doubt that I 
shall always have reason to rejoice at my change of condition 
My health has not been very good for five or six months, and 
the state of the times is such, and my embarrassments arising 
out of it, that but for the happiness of having Mary and Anna 
with me, I should be quite discouraged. I did not wish to come 
on here, but was compelled to do so. We shall start back 
this week, about Thursday. I am anxious to get home, as 
my business there requires ray immediate attention. It makes 
Qs all feel very badly to be so near you, and still unable to see 
you. Had it been possible, I should have come to Portland, 
though but for a day. I even fear that I shall not be able to 
visit P. this summer. My business presses me so heavily, 
and is of such a character, that I do not believe I can leave 
Mississippi. This will be a great disappointment to me, and 
equally so to Mary ; for we had both set our hearts upon a good 
long visit. You may be assured nothing but necessity would 
induce me to forego the pleasure. For a couple of years I fear 
I shall have little time I can call my own. I am going hard to 



214 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

work, and do not intend to cease until I can quit entirely. 
You must not feel too ranch disappointed if we do not come 
North this summer. And yet I don't know how I shall 
get over not visiting you. I wish you and Abby to see 
my wife so much : she is very beautiful and very good, and you 
will love her much, I know. Oh ! how I wi&h we could all be 
toge'iher this fall ; but it may not be, and we must comfort our- 
selves with the hope that another year will bring it about. 
Anna received a letter from Abby last niglit, and we were 
delighted to hear you were all well. Mary and Anna are 
Ooth well, though they suffered a good deal from the fatigue of 
the journey. Tell Abby she must not forget me entirely. I 
have not received a letter from her for a long time. My kindest 

love to you all. 

Your affectionate son, 

Seaegent. 

The following letters show what frightful pecuuiary dis- 
tress and prostration of business at that time pervaded the 
country. 

TO HIS YOUNGEST BE OTHER. 

Washington City, April 13, 1842. 

My Dear Geoege : — 

I have been two weeks and a half in this place, 
and should have written you immediately upon my arrival, but 
that Anna wrote you a long letter so soon as we got here, and I 
thought I would postpone ray epistle until we left, so as to 
inform you of anytliing which miglit occur in the raeanwhile. 
We leave to-morrow, direct for Vicksburg, by the railroad and 
canal to Pittsburg, and from thence down the river by steam- 
boat. I came on to Washington upon important business, which 
I have accomplislied as far as practicable, and to as great an 
extent as I expected. I trust to reap a large pecuniary harvest 
from the successful issue of this business, which relates to a num- 
ber of land claims of great value, and in which I have received 
a considerable interest (contingent upon sucoess) for my profes- 



LETTERS. 215 

Bional labors. I am very anxious to get Lome, for my profes- 
' sional engagements, and the condition of my affairs generally 
in Mississippi, imperatively require my immediate attention. 
The condition of things in the United States, at this time, espe- 
cially in the Southwest, is truly alarming. There is no cur- 
rency, property has no representative, and is without any fixed 
value, A man in debt can see no mode of liquidating it, no 
matter how much property he may possess. If it were not for 
my profession, I should despair of saving anything; but that is 
of itself a fortune, and I, therefore, look forward with confidence, 
notwithstanding the gloom in which we are all enveloped. My 
professional prospects are better than they have ever been. 

Well, dear George, I have now been married between five and 
six weeks, and am able to form some estimate of the new condi- 
tion of life which I have assumed. I do not doubt that I shall be 
happy, and have continued cause to congratulate myself upon my 
good fortune. My wife is beautiful and good, with an almost child- 
like simplicity of character, united to a strong intellect, capable 
of the highest degree of cultivation, and as pure as truth itself. 
I am most devotedly attached to her, and I believe she fully 
reciprocates my afiPection. I see nothing, therefore, to prevent 
our future happiness. I have not been in very good health for 
several months past, and this, together with my business perplexi- 
ties, has been a considerable drawback upon my enjoyment 
and has tended in some degree to depress my spirits. But 
when I get into my own house this will all pass away, and I 
shall be, I do not doubt, as happy as is allowable in this world — 
far more so than I deserve. I am delighted that you are 
coming home in the autumn, and shall insist upon your spending 
the winter with me, if mother will consent to spare you. Anna 
is going back with me to Mississippi, but she will return to 
Portland in a couple of months. Now you must come out in 
the fall, and bring her or Abby to spend the winter. I have a 
most delightful residence. I need not say how rejoiced we shall 
all be to see you. Dear Anna and Mary (my wife) have not 
been very well here, and botli are anxious to get back to Mis- 
sissippi. Washington is dull and uninteresting in every respect. 
There is some danger of war with England, though I do not 



216 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

believe it is to be feared immediately. I fear, however, it will 
come before long. Anna and Mary unite with me in love to 

you. 

Your affectionate brother, 

Seaegent. 



TO HIS SISTER ANNA. 

ViCKSBCRG, May 5, 1843. 

My Dear Anna: — 

I had not time, the day I arrived here, to write, 
except to Mary, as I went out early the next morning to Jackson, 
I stayed there a couple of days, and returned to-day. I shall 
not go out again till Monday. The courts will continue longer 
than I expected ; but I shall be able to spend at least half my 
time at Vicksburg. You and Mary must come up immediately, 
at least as soon as you can. I am sich and sad., and feel so lone- 
some, that unless you come and cure me, I shall have to give up 
and go to bed. I have hardly ever felt so gloomy. Indeed, a 
deep gloom seems to pervade the whole country. Times never 
were known to be in so desperate a condition, and the prospect 
for a long period does not seem to brighten. For the first time 
in my life, I look with apprehension upon the state of things. 
But I shall make you sad too, by talking in this way. I found 
everything right at Cub Castle, and it only needs you here to put 
it in order. Your friends are all well, and anxious to see you. I 
have seen none of them except Major M's. family, but have heard, 
I believe, of all. There is nothing new here. The town is ex- 
ceedingly dull, and likely to continue so during the summer. I 
shall expect you and Mary up the last of next week — if possible, 
before. I am dying to see you. Do, my own dear sister, come 
very soon., and cheer up 

Your most affectionate brother, 

Seargent, 

P. S. — Just consider, dear Anna, all the rest of this sheet 

filled with love. 

S. S. P. 



LETTERS. 211 

^ TO THE SAME . 

ViCKSBUSG, July 9, 1842. 

My Deae Aiwa: — 

It has been now nearly a month since you left us, 
and though not a day, nor scarcely an hour has passed, in which 
I have not thought of you and regretted your absence, yet this 
is the first time I have gathered resolution to sit down and write 
you. I have been delaying from day to day, that I might give 
you some good account of my affairs. Times are much harder 
than when you left, and are growing worse every day. There 
is literally no money in Yicksburg. Not a cent can be collected 
or borrowed. Such times as we now have here, were never 
known in the United States ; property has no value whatever, 
and all are equally poor. 

Mary and I are both delighted that your trip was so much 
more pleasant than you anticipated, and hope the remainder will 
have proved equally agreeable ; for I suppose you are at home 
by this time. You don't know how much we have both missed 
you, and how we long for your return. We consider it as a 
settled matter that you are to spend the next winter with us, 
and shall have everything ready for you and George. The house 
will be finished by that time, and you can't imagine how com- 
fortable it is going to be. The workmen are getting along very 
rapidly. The whole frame is done, and the new roof finished. 
Mary's health is excellent, and you have no idea what a notable 
housewife she has become. My home is very pleasant, and were 
it not for the cares and annoyances of my business, I should be 
perfectly happy. Oh ! I would give anything in the world if 
we were with all you dear ones in Portland ; but it is useless to 
regret what cannot be remedied — and so we will hope for that 
happiness another time. Ever 

Your most affectionate brother, 

SEAEGElfT. 



TOL. n. 10 



218 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

TO HIS YOUNGEST BEOTHEE. 
i" ViCKSBTTRQ, Jvly 16, i842. 

Deae Geoeoe : — 

I have not written you for more than three months, 
and have not received a letter from you for a much longer period. 
Anna writes so often, that I have pretty much surrendered my 
correspondence into her hands. However, I have been intend- 
ing to write you for a long time, and have delayed from day to 
day, that I might be able to tell you I had raised some funds for 
you ; in fact, I felt ashamed to write till I could do so. You can 
form no idea of the embarrassment, prostration and ruin, which 
pervade this country. Such a state of things never was known, 
and could not exist in Europe. There is no currency at all in 
this part of the country, and property has no representative. 
The Nevr Orleans banks, which heretofore furnished this State 
with the little money that did circulate, have all failed, and 
now it is utterly impossible to collect debts, or to sell property 
at any price. Nothing can be more gloomy than the present 
posture of affairs; and I confess I can see no prospect of speedy 
relief. In every other country on the face of the globe, proper- 
ty will bring some price ; here it will command nothing, and a 
man may starve in possession of a fortune. But a truce to busi- 
ness matters, and let the times take care of themselves. We 
will talk of something more interesting. How do you do, my 
dear brother, and how do you like the idea of coming home — 
leaving the Old World with its busy crowds and thronging asso- 
ciations, and once more trying this crude, unformed, democratic, 
wooden Western World ? I trust things here will improve, so 
that after you have made us a good long visit, you can go 
back again. You don't know how glad we shall all be to 
see you. We have arranged all your plans for you. After 
you have spent a little time in Portland, you and Anna are to 
come out and spend the winter with me. My wife is not less 
anxious than myself to see you ; and I shall be more than proud 
to show you your new sister-in-law. I am very happy in her so- 
ciety, and but for the cares and annoyances of business, should 
have nothing furtlier to desire. Our love has increased since our 



LETTERS. 219 

marriage, and I do not think either Mary or 1 have felt the 
shadow of regret that our destinies are united, or a single doubt 
of our continued love and happiness. Of all this, however, you 
shall judge for yourself, my dear George. Anna, as you know, 
spent the winter with us, and added greatly to our enjoyment. 
She left U8 about a month since for home. She went up tho 
river, and by the way of the Virginia Springs, at which place I 
last heard of her. "We miss her very much, and look forward 
eagerly to her return. Her health is excellent, and she wrote 
me from the Springs, that she had enjoyed her journey much. 

There is nothing new here, except the continued depression of 
business, and the gloomy condition of the country, both in busi- 
ness and politics. The President is a traitor and a fool. May he 
meet a traitor's fate, unless the luck of the fool can save him. 
Good-bye, my dear brother. Mary joins me in love to you. 

Your most affectionate 

Seargeistt. 



TO HIS SISTER ANNA. 

Belmont, Aug. IT, 1842. 

My Dearest Anna : — 

I am all alone to-day, and do not know 
how I can better occupy a solitary hour than in writing to you. 
Mary has gone to Natchez with her mother, and left me to keep 
house, a dull business enough as you may imagine. Mrs. "WiUiams 
and Margaret came up and spent nearly two weeks ; they return- 
ed on Friday last. As the workmen are all engaged on the house, 
and render it very uncomf)rtable by their noise and presence, I 
thought it a good time for Mary to make a visit below. Besides, 
I have some business to do at Jackson and Port Gibson, which 
requires me to be away for a week or more. After this is over, 
say in two weeks, I shall go down myself for her, and spend 
about a week at Natchez. We had a very nice visit from Mrs. 
W., and a short time before, one from Miss Eliza E. and Mrs. 0. 
They are all delighted with Belmont. Indeed, you would hardly 
know it, so much have the improvements altered its appearance. 



220 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

When finished, it will be the prettiest and most comfortable house 
in the State. I think it will be entirely finished by the first of 
JSTovember, and all ready for you and George. You will have 
your old room, which is decidedly the pleasantest one of all, and 
George will have a chamber opposite yours. All the windows 
up stairs, are to be cut down to the floor, and replaced by glass 
doors opening upon the gallery. My health is tolerable; I think 
a little better than it was when you left, though I am still feeble, 
and without appetite. The embarrassed condition of my affairs 
has annoyed me a great deal, and, I doubt not, contributed some- 
what to depress me. However, I am not much given to despon- 
dency, from such a cause ; and shall not allow it to trouble me se- 
riously. The summer, so far, has been dull, though remarkably 
healthy, and has passed off as well as I could have expected. Mary 
is exceedingly kind and affectionate, and has done everything in 
her power to make me happy. I think she loves me more than 
when we were married, and whatever may be my fortunes, I 
believe she will prove to me as she has done, a most true, and 
loving wife. I am every way satisfied, and happy in her society, 
and if my health was a little better, and my affairs a little less 
entangled, I should have nothing to wish, except the presence 
of all you dear ones, to participate in my happiness. As I told 
you in my last, you and George must not fail to spend the win- 
ter with us, for I miss your society very much, and am fully as 
anxious for it, as before my marriage. Of this I wish you all, 
and you particularly, to be aware, that my marriage has not, in 
any degree, changed or lessened my affection for you, or altered 
in any way, my position in regard to each and all of you. You 
must not fail to write me as often as you used to do, and so 
must Abby. Your friends are all well, and often inquire about 
you. I trust your health will not suffer by the cold climate you 
are in. Be careful of yourself, my dear sister, and let me hear 
from you often. My best love to mother, and Abby, and 
Samuel, and yourself. 

Your affectionate brother, 

SSABGSNT. 



LETTERS. 22f 

TO niS YOUNGEST BE0THE5. 

ViCKSBUBG, November 23, 1842. 

My Dear Brother : — 

Your letter of the 30th ult. reached me to day. I 
had been long expecting from yourself, the announcement of 
your arrival — an event with which I was already acquainted 
through the New York papers, and also by a letter from Anna. 
I now lay all the blame of delay upon the mails, those pitiless 
monsters, that, like the fatal sisters, have no regard for mortal 
affections, and take no note of human feeling. I wrote you 
some five or six weeks since, and presume you have been treated 
as badly as I. I cannot tell you, my dear brother, how warmly 
I welcome your return. I am almost jealous, because I was 
not one of that affectionate circle Avhich received you in its 
warm embrace. "When I read dear Anna's description of your 
meeting with the loved ones, from whom you have been so long 
a wanderer, I wept, I almost thought from envy, but it was not so. 
it was from regret that I had not formed a segment of that happy 
circle ; but after all it Avas a happy grief. You cannot tell how 
much I long to have you and Anna here. My dear Mary and I 
have set our hearts upon it, and have been all summer making 
our arrangements for your reception. Anna is to have her old 
room ; you are to be located over the library, immediately oppo- 
site to her. I fear I shall be compelled to be absent a great 
deal on professional business ; but Mary, and you, and Anna, will 
enjoy yourselves finely, and that will make me happy wherever 
I may be. My improvements are nearly completed, and I can 
offer you a more civilized reception, than what you met with 
when you visited me before. Oh ! if I could only have you all 
to come and live with me, it would make me perfectly happy. 
For the last two or three weeks I have been absent, attending 
court at Jackson. Before I went, I took my dear Mary down to 
Natchez, on a visit to her mother. To-morrow, I shall go down 
to see her. I cannot bear a longer absence, and though I shall be 
able to stay only a day or two at the furthest, they will be 
days of very great happiness to me. I have never before been 
absent from my wife so long, and I am almost crazy at the idea of 



222 



MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 



seeing her so soon. I suppose you will laugh at this enthusiasm 
very well, wait till you are in my situation, and then you will 
understand it. I think times are improving here somewhat, and 
I do not believe they will ever be as hard as they have been. 
We shall count the minutes till you and Anna arrive. My love 
to all the dear ones. 

Your affectionate brother, 

Seaegent. 

The following note to his wife was occasioned by her nar- 
row escape from a perilous steamboat disaster. 

ViCKSBCKG, Dec. 12, 1842. 

My Deaeest Wife: — 

I wrote the inclosed last night, and on coming 
down in town this morning, found your dear and thrilling letter 
from Bayou Sara, giving an account of your misfortune and 
Providential escape. Oh, my dear, dear Mary, how thankful I 
ought to je for your preservation ! Had any evil befallen you, I 
should never have forgiven myself for being away from you. I 
have heard how nobly and courageously you behaved, and am 
proud of your conduct, while I tremble to reflect on the danger 
that elicited it. Thank God, you will be with me, I trust, on 
Thursday, for I shall hardly believe you are safe till I hold you 
in my arms. I send this by the Missouri to-day, and trust you 
will get it in the morning. I am very well, though full of trepi- 
dation on your account. Good-bye, sweet, good-bye. May 
Heaven ever preserve, and bless you, as it has already done. 
My love to all. 

Your most affectionate and devoted husband, 

S. S. Peentibs. 



His correspondence in 1843 began, as usual, with a New 
Year's letter to his mother : 

ViCKSBURG, Jcmniary 1, 1843. 

My Deae, Deae Mothee : — 

1 have delayed writing for the last ten days, in ex 
pectation of George's and Anna's arrival. The weather haa 



LETTERS. 223 

been so cold dnring December, that I fear they are frozen 
up somewhere on the way. I still expect them every mo- 
ment. Mary and I are watching every boat that appears, 
with the hope of greeting the dear and long expected travellers. 
Bnt I cannot wait any longer. To-day I must write to you and 
Abby, and wish you a happy new-year. My dear Mary and my- 
self wish it from our hearts, and beg our dear mother and sis- 
ters to accept our warmest love. Ohl that you were here 
with us, this beautiful Sabbath. It is one of the most beau- 
tiful days you ever saw, warm and bright as spring ; and the 
new year is fairly laughing itself into existence. Dear, dear 
mother, and dear Abby, my affection for you fills my eyes with 
pleasant tears, even now as I write. My heart is with you, 
though my body is not. What would I not give to know what 
you are doing, and how you are looking at this moment. It has 
been now more than a month since I heard from you, and I 
should feel alarmed did I not know the obstructions to travel- 
ling at this season, and account for it in that way. y'"'^ are very 
well, though I have been a little indisposed. I have spent 
Christmas week at home ; the rest of the time, for the last six 
weeks, I have been attending the courts. We have got our house 
finished, and it is now one of the pleasantest I ever saw. I 
think George and Anna will pass a delightful winter with us. 
Mary has prepared their rooms so nicely ; and everything is now 
ready for their welcome. I am so glad they are to be with us 
this winter, for many reasons. In the first place, I shall be 
compelled to be absent a great deal on my professional business, 
and they will be such a comfort to Mary, who would otherwise 
be all alone ; besides, she now needs A.'s kind attention, for I 
hope, my dear mother, that in a few months, when you pray 
for your dear children in Mississippi, you will invoke the bless- 
ing of Providence upon one more of the little family circle that 
is clustering around you, to love and reverence your declining 
years. Where, is S., and what is he doing? I have been 
thinking a good deal about him, and have come to the conclu- 
sion that it will be best for him to come out here. I have no 
doubt I can get him something to do, and shall be pleased t® 



224 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

have him live with me now. M. is anxious he should come. I 
will write again in a few days. 

Your affectionate sou, 

Seaegent. 

Although Mr. Prentiss had withdrawn from public life, 
there was one subject which, during the years 1841, 
1842, and 1843, often called him from his retirement, 
and was the occasion of some of his ablest addresses to the 
people. It also led to a good deal of political correspond- 
ence, of which the following letters, addressed to him in the 
early part of this year, will show the drift. The subject it- 
self will occupy the next chapter. Judge Gholson, of the 
TJ, S. District Court, was a bond-paying Democrat, and had 
been one of Mr. Prentiss' opponents in the Mississippi con- 
tested election. 

8. J. GHOLSON TO S. S. PRENTISS. 

Abebdeen, Miss^ March 25, 1848. 

Deae Sie : — 

I am anxious to know whether there will be a 
Whig candidate for Governor of our State, at the next election. 
The bond-paying Democrats here are ready to run Col. Thomas 
H. Williams, and he is willing to take the field, and meet the 
anti-bond question fully, if there is to be no Whig candidate. I 
am of opinion this course would more completely ensure the de- 
feat of the anti-bond party than any other we could pursue. 

My object is to defeat the repudiators, and I will with plea- 
sure co-operate in the support of any man who can succeed over 
them. 

I wish you to see such of your friends on this subject as ought 
to be consulted, and write rae fully. 

Your friend, 

S. J. Gholson, 



GUBERNATORIAL ELECTION OF 1843. 225 

Gen. Duffield, now deceased, was a warm personal and 
political friend of Mr. Prentiss. For several years he edited 
the Natchez Courier. 

3. M. DUFFIELD TO S. 8. PRENTISS. 

Natchez, April 18, 1843. 

My Dear Sir: — 

Your letter of the 11th inst. has been in my pos- 
session some days. I have shown it, however, only to 
Bingaman and M. The former agrees with us — the latter 
does not. But the Whigs at large coincide precisely in our 
views, so far as I have had an opportunity of becoming ac- 
quainted with their opinions. 

I have written letters to E. Hughes at Jackson, H. R. Miller, 
Pontotoc, and Gen. Bradford, Holly Springs. I have received a 
reply only from Miller, who is quite with us ; and who fortifies 
my opi Dions by his statement of the dissensions of our opponents 
in the north, and of the desire of many anti-bonders to support 
"Williams, decidedly the most eligible man that could be started. 
With him as our candidate, receiving the hearty support of the 
Whigs, we can soon break up the unholy alliance between our 
goodly State and Repudiation — a wedlock of Beauty and the 
Beast. 

Another reason, additional to those that have been urged, why 
Williams should be run, or rather why a bond-paying Democrat 
should be started, is this : Many of the anti-bonders are ashamed 
of their doctrines, their party, themselves. In supporting Wil- 
liams, they can decently retire from the anti-bond communion ; 
and, if they can thus save appearances, in God's name let us 
grant them the opportunity. 

The quaking of our opponents at the bare mention of a union 
for the sake of the State, is a most significant symptom of the 
expediency of such union. With Whig candidates we may suc- 
ceed (although I for one have not the least hope of it) ; with 
Williams, and other judicious selections (continuing Galloway, 
for instance), success is beyond a doubt. Is not certainty better 
than doubt ? triumph, than hazardous speculation ? As to ua- 

VOL. II. 10* 



226 MEMOIR OP S. S. PRENTISS. 

tional politics, can he be a true lover of his State, who weighs 
tariffs, distribution bills, even Henry Clay himself, the " embodi- 
ment of Whig principles," against his own immediate honor, 
bound as that honor is, to the redemption of the State. Gird 
on your armor, Peentiss ; you are the standard-bearer of Missis- 
sippi honor ; your chivalry will wake the dead soul of pride be- 
neath the ribs of the State ; strike another good blow at the 
reeling cabal. 

Dudley, of the Southron^ and Hammett, of the Whig^ are, I 
think, on the wrong track. Cannot they be brought to see the 
matter more calmly, and listen to reason, rather than that en- 
thusiasm which animates them — a noble enthusiasm, indeed, but 
not of suflScient clairvoyance. 

If they must hold a convention, are committed to it, perhaps 
It would be as well for the convention to adjourn officially, with- 
out making nominations, and then, meeting as a body of Whigs, 
urge Williams upon the consideration of our party. A strong 
address would aid in this matter. I fear that it will be 
impossible for me to be present at the convention, and, in truth, 
I am no friend to the project. 

I should be glad to hear from you at your convenience. And 
meantime, and all the time, believe me, dear sir, 

Your attached friend, 

J. M. DUEFIELD. 

Mr. Prentiss, as appears from this letter, strongly advised 
that the Whigs should unite upon a bond-paying Democrat, 
as their candidate for Governor. Unfortunately, his coun- 
sel was not followed, and an avowed repudiator was elected. 

In the latter part of February, of this year, he enjoyed 
the gratification of a visit from Henry Clay, who, 
having spent the winter in the Southwest, was now on his 
return to Ashland. The veteran statesman was just then 
reposing for a little from the toils of public life ; yet not 
without a strong hope, on the part of his friends, that, ere 
long, he would be summoned by his grateful and admiring 



VISIT FROM HENRY CLAY. 221 

countrymen to the Chief Magistracy of the nation. Already, 
indeed, had the Whig party designated him by acclamation, 
as their next candidate, and so probable did he himself deem 
the event of his election, that Mr. P. one day remarked, 
playfully, " See, he is even now putting on Presidential 
airs I" 

Mr. Clay was a man whose greatness did not vanish 
upon a near view. No one could hear him converse five 
minutes on public affairs, without feehng himself in the pre- 
sence of a consummate statesman. His language was 
perfectly simple, his manner frank and easy, but he spoke 
with a method, precision, and quiet authority, which plainly 
betokened the habit of political judgment and command. 
One evening he and his host sat together, in the twilight, in 
long and earnest discourse upon the state of the nation. It 
was, however, more monologue than colloquy ; the younger 
statesman obviously playing the part of a learner. The 
next morning he called my attention to the remarkable 
clearness, dignity, and patriotic spirit of Mr. Clay's obser- 
vations, begging me to contrast them with the vague and 
bustling wisdom of ordinary politicians. 

Mr. Clay reminded me strongly of Wordsworth, the poet, 
to whom I had recently paid a visit. They were nearly of 
the same age, and there were certain peculiarities of appear- 
ance, manner, and opinion in the one, which instantly 
recalled the other. Perhaps the impression, associating the 
two men, was increased by the circumstance, that I had heard 
Mr. Wordsworth also speak of our public affairs — particu- 
larly of repudiation, and its effect upon our national cha- 
racter abroad — in a spirit exactly in harmony with that of 
the great American statesman. The poet, as well as the 
orator, had reflected much upon political philosophy ; he 
was at once liberal and conservative ; he looked with 
abhorrence upon demagogues, and scorned the judgment of 



228 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

the populace, literary or political, as sincerely as he 
respected that of the real people. He was, too, as his 
sonnets to Liberty give ample proof, an ardent lover of 
Freedom, and no passages in Henry Clay's appeals in 
behalf of Greece, or the South American Republics, surpass 
in eloquence and nobleness of sentiment Wordsworth's 
indignant outbursts in his celebrated tract on the Con- 
vention of Cintra. Mr. Clay, however, did not seem to 
feel so much flattered by the comparison with Wordsworth 
as one might have expected. He evidently knew far less 
of the great poet than the poet knew of him. But though 
rather impervious to my compliment, he observed, with not 
a little unction, that he had sometimes been said to resemble 
the Duke of Wellington.* 

It was pleasant to watch the almost filial deference with 
which Mr. Prentiss treated his venerable guest, and the not 
less marked respect and affection which greeted him in 
return. He told me that few things of the kind had ever 
gratified him so much, or conveyed so high a compliment, as 
Mr. Clay's mode of exp-essing his friendship far him. Those 
who knew the imperial tone and temper of the Whig leader, 
and the somewhat dictatorial office which he at times 
assumed in guiding the party that idolized him, into what 
he deemed right paths, can readily appreciate the force of 
this remark. 

Upon his arrival in Yicksburg, Mr. Clay had a brilliant 
public reception, at which Mr. Prentiss delivered the follow- 
ing brief address : 

M^- Clay: On behalf of the public authorities and citizens of 
Vicksburg, I bid you a biearty welcome to our city. We are 

* It is related of Wordsworth that he was once persuaded to " show himself" to 
one of the curious tourists, who haunted Rydal Mount, by the person sending in word 
that there were two men in England he had longed to take by the hand— the 
Duke of Wellington and Mr. Wordsworth, fl^ h^d seen the Duke ; could l;e nqt 
now see Mr. Wordsworth? 



ADDRESS TO MR. CLAY. 229 

much gratified that on your return home, you have afforded us 
the opportunity of exchanging salutations and of offering to you 
those assurances of respect and regard which we were able, only 
in part, to tender, on the occasion of your former momentary 
visit. No portion of your fellow-citizens have a higher admira- 
tion for your character, or a truer appreciation of your public 
services, than those in whose name I now address you. "We 
behold in your reputation one of the richest jewels of the nation, 
which needs no setting of office to exhibit its rare brilliancy and 
value. Your philanthropy has embraced in its benevolent 
grasp the cause of human happiness throughout the world ; your 
eloquent breath fanned the flame of Liberty as it burst forth, 
simultaneously, in two continents. Along the classic shores of 
Greece, the votary of Freedom 

" Still mingles in his grateful lay, 
Bozzaris with the name of Clay." 

And among the mighty volcanoes of the New "World, even in the 
tops of the Andes, your fame has built for itself a nest by the 
side of the eagle's. 

But your philanthropy has not destroyed your patriotism. 
You have never forgotten, in your regard for other lands, that 
you had a country of your own. It is your true and patriotic 
devotion to that country which, more than aught else, challenges 
our esteem and admiration. Beyond any other statesman, you 
have discarded local prejudices and sectional feelings. Your 
heart is entirely and thoroughly American, and your aim has 
ever been the advancement of the interest and glory of the whole 
Republic. 

It would, perhaps, be out of place, on this occasion, to go into 
a recital of the eminent public services you have rendered in the 
councils of the nation, during your long and splendid career. 
But I cannot refrain from saying, that I consider one of the 
greatest benefits you have conferred upon the country, to be the 
example you have furnished of what may be achieved under our 
institutions by the exercise of a patriotic and honorable ambi- 
tion. Young men, as they read your history, and trace you from 
the poor boy leaving his Virginia home to seek fame and fortune 



230 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS 

in the forests of the West, to the mighty statesman, upon whose 
words "listening senates hang entranced," will feel their breasts 
swell with new and strange emotions, and a noble emulation 
will urge them thenceforward to imitate the example of Henry 
Clay. 

The highest reward of the patriot is the esteem and regard of 
his countrymen ; this reward you are now enjoying. Station 
cannot command, wealth cannot purchase it. The sponta- 
neous tribute which has just been rendered to your character by 
men of all parties, fills the measure of public honor. Even that 
high seat which millions eagerly desire you to occupy, would 
not add one cubit to the stature of your fame. Think 
not this is adulation. It is no less the interest than the 
duty of every country to acknowledge public worth, and we are 
proud in presenting Henry Clay to our brothers and sons as an 
example for their imitation, and to the world as a noble specimen 
of an American statesman. 

A large portion of those who surround you, trust your public 
services are not yet completed; and that, as the first man in 
their regard, you may soon occupy the first place in their gift. 

Permit me now, sir, to conclude my pleasant duty, and in the 
name of that portion of your fellow-citizens who have deputed 
me to bid you again a cordial welcome ; and I know I express 
the sentiment of this entire assemblage in adding our united 
wish, that your days may be long in the land, and that a serene 
and happy old age may crown your useful and honorable life. 

After reaching home, Mr. Clay addressed Mr, Prentiss 
the following letter in reference to the approaching election 
in Mississippi : 

Ashland, April 27, 1843. 
My Deae Sir: — 
* * * * The goodness of our cause ; the badness 
of that of our opponents ; the dishonesty of repudiation ; the 
divisions, both on local and general questions, among our oppo- 
nents ; the moral action within and without the State in regard 
to the obhgations of honor and good faith ; the flight of G , 



LETTER FROM MR. CLAY. 231 

and the suicide of his less guilty confederate ; all these causes 
must give you victory at your next election. When I had the 
pleasure of heing with you, you thought it would be the best 
policy, if the Democratic Convention would nominate a bond- 
paying Democrat, to make no opposition, but support the nomi- 
nation ; and you said as much to some of the delegates to that 
Convention. But they did not make such a nomination, and 
their failure absolves you from all obligation in the matter. 

And now what is best to be done? "Will you pardon me for 
making a suggestion ? It appears to me, that it would be the 
wisest to run Whig candidates who are in favor of paying the 
State debt, for all the important offices. If you attempt to run 
Democrats, who are for paying the bonds, many Whigs, some 
from principle, some upon pretext, will refuse to vote for them, 
because they are Democrats. It is easier to draw to the Whigs 
the honest Democrats, than it is to carry the mass of the Whigs 
to them ; because there is less difficulty in moving a few than 
many. And I must say that, I think, it has been the vice of the 
Whig party, frequently manifested during the last eight or ten 
years, that they have too often sought to ally themselves to the 
odds and ends of other parties, instead of resting upon the 
strength of their own numbers and their own patriotic princi- 
ples. What sacrifices have they not made to gain Anti- 
Masons, even Abolitionists, &c. &c. ? 

I wished to bring this view of the matter to your consideration. 
At the same time, I know that your superior knowledge of local 
causes and circumstances makes you much more competent to 
ludge than I am. 

I recollect, with great pleasure, the agreeable hours I recently 
passed under your roof. * * * 

Be pleased to present my friendly regards to Mrs. Prentiss, 
and your sister and brother. 

I am, truly and faithfully. 

Your friend and obedient servant, 

H. Clay. 

Reference will be made in the next two chapters to seyeral 



232 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

incidents of a public nature, which belong to the year 1843 
The reader may get a glimpse of his domestic history, during 
the same period, from the following letters : 



TO HIS YOUNGEST BROTHEE. 

Belmont, Jvly 4, 1843. 

My Deae Brother : — 

Here I am at Belmont, all alone, spending my 
Independence Day in waiting for the evening train of cars for 
Jackson, whither I am bound to attend the courts. A week ago 
I took Mary and dear little Jeanie down to Natchez, tarried 
with them several days at Longwood, left them there, and came 
back day before yesterday. "We have all been well since your 
departure, except a little complainiug on my part, which, how- 
ever, amounts to nothing. A little rest is all I want, and that I 
am determined to take presently. I shall go down to Panola in 
two or three weeks, and intend to spend a month or six weeks 
there. By that time the waters will have fallen in the lake, and 
the fishing will be admirable ; so I do not doubt I shall enjoy my 
visit much. Jeanie, dear little thing, is increasing rapidly in 
all good nurture and admonition. She is already notorious 
through the regions hereabouts as the finest child extant, and I 
believe I have become equally notorious for my boasting and 
vanity on her behalf. We were delighted to hear that Anna 
enjoyed herself so much in Louisville. To you, I presume, so 
much visiting was rather a bore. Mary received letters from 
Louisville and Cincinnati, and I got one yesterday from Cumber- 
land, for which dear Anna has my thanks. I had intended say- 
ing something about political matters, but have hardly room, so 
I will pretermit it at present. By this time, of course, you are 
safe and happy at home, where I wish I could join you. 

Here is a specimen of his letters to his wife, written 
during his occasional absences from home. The "Nation" 
refers to the Choctaw Indians : 



LETTERS. * 233 



Jackson, July 9, 1S43. 

Mt Deaeest Wife : — 

I start to-morrow evening on my trip to the 
Kation. I have a nice httle buggy, with a top to it, and 
a good horse, all loaned me by a friend ; so I shall have a much 
pleasanter time of it than if I was on horseback. It will taka 
me three days to go and the same to return. I do not expect to 
be detained there more than two or three days ; still I may 
have to stay a long time. On my return, I suppose my 
business will hold me about ten days at Vicksburg, and then, 
ho ! for the lake, for my dear wife and sweet little daughter, for 
Mary and Jeanie. Absence has taught me the full value of the 
treasures I possess at home. All the rest of the world looks 
poor and miserable. Indeed, my dear Mary, my distaste for the 
world is growing so strong upon me, that I fear its results ; it 
has almost unfitted me for business, and will, I am afraid, grow 
into a confirmed habit of misanthropy. But the less I love the 
world, the more I love you and our child — our bright spring 
child. You cannot imagine how much I am attached to her. I 
find myself continually thinking of her. I see her lying on the 
floor crowing away, and striving to express, both by sound and 
gesture, her tiny thoughts. I see her in the bath, splashing the 
water with her little hands and feet, her eyes glancing and 
sparkling, half with fear and half with delight. In imagination, 
too, she has grown many months older, and climbed my knee 
and kissed me, and lisped in my ear her childish hopes and 
wishes. Even this is not all ; sometimes I behold her in full 
maturity, beautiful and good like her mother; shedding light 
and happiness upon all around ; dividing with you your house- 
hold cares, and with her sunny smile dispelling all the clouds 
which may lower upon us. What do you think of my present! 
ments ? Will they not turn out true ? I have been pretty well 
since I left you, and have got rid of all complaint, except weak- 
ness. I sutter from lassitude, and indisposition for exertion, 
which, however, is readily attributable to the excessive heat of 
the weather. I long to hear how you come on at Panola, hovf 
your health and spirits are, how much Jeanie has grown, whe- 



234 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

ther she has changed in appearance, what she has learned, 
&o. &c. &c. I have received no letter since the one by the 
Buckeye, last Monday. I shall not write from the Nation, unless 
I can get a private conveyance, for the mails cannot be relied 
on, and I shall get back before a letter can come. My kind 
remembrance to all the family. Kiss dear Jeanie for me till 
you get tired. To you, my own dear wife, as much love as you 
can bear. 

Your most affectionate and devoted husband, 

S. S. Peentiss. 



TO HIS SISTER ANNA. 

ViCKSBURQ, Sept. 3, 1843. 

My Dear Sister : — 

Mary is writing to George, and I see no reason 
why I should not give you a cliance of receiving a letter as soon 
as he. I wrote from Natchez, three or four weeks since, and 
Mary intended to do the same, but she had quite an attack of 
fever, and has been so indisposed ever since, as to prevent it till 
to-day. She is now rapidly recovering her strength, which is all 
that is required to make her perfectly well. I suppose she 
has mentioned the wonderful visit we have had from Natchez. 
Belraout has been right gay during the past week, I assure 
you, and Mary and I were continually regretting that you 
were not here to participate in the enjoyment. Mrs. P. has 
not been from home before for twenty-five years. All 
the ladies seemed to enjoy themselves, and expressed great 
delight at their visit. Jeanie is improving wonderfully. I 
would give anything in the world if you could all see her. She 
weighs eighteen pounds, can sit alone, and almost stand, and I 
verily believe will talk in a month. You never saw a child 
with so much vivacity. Her eyes and ears are constantly on 
the alert, and she eagerly investigates all she hears or sees. She 
wakes up regularly at daybreak, and commences crowing, and 
has already acquired the trick of pulling my hair to wake me, 
tliereby intimating her disHke of my lazy habits. She is a dear^ 



LETTERS. 235 

iweet, funny little thing, and a great comfort to her father and 
mother, as she will also be this winter to her aunt Anna, to 
whom, they say, she bears a very considerable resemblance. It 
has been, and still is, unusually healthy here. I never knew it 
more so. My own health is somewhat improved. Your friends 
are all well, and inquire about you unceasingly. My best love 
to you all. 



TO THE SAME. 

ViCKSBUBQ, Sept. 26, 1843. 

My Deae Sister : — 

I returned day before yesterday from Kew Orleans, 
and found a letter from you, awaiting my arrival. Mary 
had already prepared me for its contents, which I devoured, 
as you may imagine, with no ordinary degree of interest and 
pleasure. And so, sweet Anna, you have thought proper to 
follow the example of your wise brother. * * * Well, 
it is not good for man to be alone, nor woman either ; and though 
sometimes selfishness has whispered how gratifying it would be 
to Mary and me, should you continue a member of our own family, 
and gladden our fireside with your continual presence, yet I 
have ever wished, even at the expense of this great blessing, that 
you might some day be called to fulfill a higher destiny, to 
become the centre of a domestic circle of your own, within 
whose bright, warm precincts all should be happiness and love. 
I am glad, very glad, and if a slight pang accompanies my joy, it 
arises from my great affection for you— say, regret at losing you, 
and a sort of jealous fear at seeing your happiness placed in the 
hands of another. That he whom you have chosen is worthy 
and good, I cannot doubt ; you could not love one who was not. 
* * * I welcome Mr. S., then, as a brother ; and so 
long as he loves you, I cannot fail to love him. If his afi'ectioQ 
for you is as great as mine, I shall be satisfied, and so, I think, 
will you. To your union I give my williog consent, and upon it 
invoke Heaven's choicest blessings. May the clouds which have 



236 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS 

sometimes obscured your sky, be for ever dissipated. May the 
earth continue to look as pleasant, and the moon and stars as 
bright, as they now do. Even as you sympathized with 
my sorrows and rejoiced in my joy, so, my dearest sister, do I 
sympathize and rejoice with you. Mary and I grieve that you 
cannot be with us this winter ; still we are content that our loss 
shall be your gain. 

Since commencing this, I have got a letter from G., announc- 
ing his engagement. Why! what is the matter? Has matri- 
mony become epidemic in the family? Dear me, what billing 
and cooing there must be up Danforth street. Love and her 
pigeons must have built nests in those old elms. How does 
mother stand such carryings on ? * * * But I have 
not said a tithe of what I intended. So I will presently write 
you another and longer letter. Write me particularly all about 
your several engagements, when you expect to be married, 
&c. &c. Mary and I are dying to hear more, and more and more 
still about it. We have laughed and cried by turns. Jeanie 
is well, and beautiful, and good. We all send love without 
limit. Mary wrote yesterday, and will write again soon. 

Your affectionate brother, 

Seaegent. 



TO HIS YOUNGEST BEOTHEE. 

ViCKSBUBO, Oct. 1, 1843. 

My Dear George : — 

I wrote Anna two or three days since, and intended 
writing you at the same time ; but was called away again on 
business, which has occupied my attention ever since. I have 
just returned from church with Mary, and hasten, at this earliest 
opportunity, to send you our congratulations and benediction 
npon the happy event which your letter of the 13th ult. 
announces. We both rejoice most sincerely in the successful 
issue of your attachment, and invoke upon it all the blessings 
which belong to a pure and reciprocal love. In winning a true 



LETTERS. 237 

woman's love, you have obtained the greatest prize in this 
world's lottery. God bless you both, my dear brother, and 
sister soon to be, I trust. The hollo wness of the world, and the 
vanity of its pursuits, all but fools will soon discover. Love 
comes nearer than aught else to filling the craving void which 
exists in every human heart.; You are richer now than if you 
had found a mine of gold. * * * Qq^ bless you again, 
my dearest brother, and bring to a happy fruition the bright 
hopes in which your heart now indulges. But I hardly know 
what to say. My mind has been quite agitated for the last few 
days, with feelings of surprise and pleasure, mingled, perhaps, 
with a little selfish regret. Altogether, however, I am happy, 
truly happy, in this great family convulsion. * * * 
Mary and I both shall be overjoyed if you will spend the winter 
with us ; provided you do not make a sacrifice of your own 
feelings in leaving Portland. "We are not so selfish as to ask 
you to come to us, if you have any other plans. I am, how ■ 
ever, of opinion that this climate will be of service to you^ 
so I join Mary, and say. Come. Jeanie is a beautiful httle 
flower, and the petals of her heart are already sufficiently 
open to receive the dews of goodness and virtue. Come, then, 
^y dear brother, and as early as you can. I shall be much absent 
on business, and you will take care of Belmont for me, when 
gone. I am several letters in arrears to you ; but your last has 
driven the others out of my head ; so I shall say nothing now of 
your fine trout-fishing at the Great Brook (though I envied 
you the sport and the associations connected with it) or of your 
other movements during the summer. I will not write further 
at present ; but you shall hear from me soon again. We are all 
well ; and Vicksburg is remarkably healthy. I was compelled 
to visit New Orleans about two weeks ago, and suffered no 
inconvenience from it. I got my desk in good order, and am 
highly pleased with it, as well as the chair. My commission 
could not have been better executed. And now good-bye. My 
love to all the dear ones. Mary has just written you herself, and 
joins me in all I have said. 

Yoar affectionate brother, 

Seaegknt. 



238 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

TO HIS SISTER ANNA. 

ViCKSBURG, Oct. 27, 1843. 

My Dear Anna : — 

Since I wrote you last, I have been nearly all the 
time away from home. About two weeks ago, I took Mary 
and Jeanie down to LongAvood, while I went out to Jefferson 
County to Court. I returned to Natchez, and we were all coming 
up together, but missed the packet. As I was not willing 
Mary should come on an up-country boat, I had to leave her, 
but shall go down to day after her. While at Natchez, I got 
your letter informing us that you expected to be married by the 
middle of November. * * * There is nothing Mary 
and I would not give to be with you, as you were with us, sym- 
pathizing in your happiness, and invoking upon your dear head 
all the blessings which belong to a union of good and loving 
hearts. But though we cannot be Avith you in person, dearest, 
our hearts and wishes will be there. When you think of us on 
your bridal day, you will know and feel, that in spirit we are 
present among the guests, smiling upon you ; and that thought 
will make you less sad, because you see us not. You cannot 
know how much we grieve at losing your society this winter. 
Mary is not yet reconciled to it, and even dear little Jeanie 
seems to be aware how much she has lost. Your friends every- 
where express much regret that they will not see you, and 
complain as bitterly as if yon had committed a personal injury. 
You must write me very often from your new home, and tell 
me all about your house, your town, your parishioners, every- 
thing that interests you ; for it will, on that account, be inte- 
resting to me. There is nothing new here. The sickness is 
over, and we are all well. The weather is getting quite cold, 
and we have already had frost. And now, my dear, dear sister, 
may God bless you, and smile upon your nuptials. The good 
wishes and the blessing of your brother you already have ; and 
whatever fortune may betide you, you know his feelings towards 
you can never change ; he will rejoice in your joys, and weep 
for your sorrows. My love to dear mother, and to you all. 

Most affectionately your brother 

Seakgent. 



MISSISSIPPI REPUDIATION. 239 



CHAPTER XX. 

liississippi Repudiation — Mr. Prentiss' Opposition to it — His Popular Addresses on 
the Subject — Argument at Fayette against the Doctrine that one Generation can- 
not bind another — Col. Joseph B. Cobb's Reminiscences of a Speech at Jackson 
before the Whig Convention of 1843 — Letter to the Poet Wordsworth — Mr. Words- 
worth's Reply — The Question of Repudiation finally decided by the Supreme 
Court of Mississippi. 

1840-1843. 

No one can peruse Mr. Prentiss' speech in the Legislature, 
on admitting Delegates from the 'Sew Counties, or that in 
Congress, on the Mississippi Contested Election, without con- 
fessing that he was imbued with a deep feeling of veneration 
for law and public order. An act which appeared to him 
palpably wrong, whether perpetrated by one man or by a 
million, was certain to encounter his open and unqualified 
hostility. Never, indeed, was his oratory more effective 
than in denouncing the violation, or vindicating the sanc- 
tity, of contracts, chartered rights, and constitutional obli- 
gations. It is not, therefore, surprising, that he should 
have waged an early, uncompromising, and relentless war 
against Repudiation. His abhorrence of it amounted to a 
passion so intense and withering that, for several years, it 
consumed his peace, sundered old friendly ties, and embit- 
tered the very springs of life. To the day of his death the 
scars of this terrible conflict remained upon his heart, un- 
healed. From the first he regarded Repudiation as a mala- 
dy e7ise reddendum, and not to be dealt with on ordinary 
methods. " My advice," he writes, " is, that the Whigs 



240 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

make it a social and a business contest, as well as a political 
one. 

It will be the aim of this chapter to present an 
authentic statement of his connection with this unhappy- 
question. There is no part of his public life, concerning 
which he would have been more anxious that the exact 
truth should be told, or which does greater honor to his 
memory ; and, fortunately, there is none which can be 
placed in a clearer light. During the winters of 1842-3 
and 1843-4, he often conversed with me on the subject, ex- 
pressing in particular his views of the theoretical source of 
the evil. For many of the advocates of Repudiation justi- 
fied it, not merely on the ground that the Union Bank 
Bonds, as they said, were illegally issued, or sold ; they 
went further, and boldly defended it on the principle that 
one generatio7i cannot hind another. In establishing this pro- 
position, they cited the opinion, or rather speculation, of 
Mr. Jefferson,* whose authority among them, like the coun- 



i 



* Mr. Jefferson's doctrine is fully expounded by himself in a letter to Mr. Madison, 
dated Paris, September 6, 1789. It is a striking illustration of the mania for politi- 
cal experiment and innovation, which then raged in the Parisian clubs, and was 
just organizing itself, with such terrific power, in the French Revolution. A few 
extracts will show its spirit : 

" The question, whether one generation of men has a right to bind another, 
seems never to have been started, either on this or our side of the water. Yet it is 
a question of such consequence as not only to merit decision, but place also among 
the fundamental principles of every government. The course of reflection in which 
we are immersed here, on the elementary principles of society, has presented this 
question to my mind ; and that no such obligation can be so transmitted, I think 
very capable of proof. I set out on this ground, which I suppose to be self-evident, 
that the earth belongs in usufruct to the living ; that the dead have neither 
powers nor rights over it. The portion occupied by any individual ceases to be his 
when he himself ceases to be, and reverts to the society. * * * jf ^^lej 
have formed rules of appropriation, those rules may give it to the wife and children, 
or to some one of them, or to the legatee of the deceased. So they may give it to his 
creditor. But the child, the legatee, or creditor, takes it not by natural right, but by 
law of the society of which he is a member, and to which he is subject. Then, no 
man can, by natural right, oblige the lands he occupied, or the persons who suc- 
ceed him in that occupation, to the payment of debts contracted by him. * * « 
What is true of every member of the society individually, is tr'ie of them all colleo 



MISSISSIPPI REPUDIATION. 241 

sel of Ahithophel, " was as if a man had inquired at the ora' 
ck of Gody It was no doubt partly owing to the effective 
use which he saw the repudiators making of this perilous 
speculation, that Mr. Prentiss often gave it as his deliber- 
ate opinion, that Mr. Jefferson, notwithstanding his great 
services, had done more than any other man to unsettle 
and injure the political temper of the American people. 

The first record of Mr. Prentiss' warfare upon Repudia- 
tion is as early as March 14, 1840. In his message to the 
Legislature in January of that year. Gov. McNutt recom- 



tively ; since the rights of the whole can be no more than the sum of the rights of 
the individuals. To keep our ideas clear when applying them to a multitude, let 
us suppose a whole generation of men to be born on the same day, to attain mature 
age on the same day, and to die on the same day, leaving a succeeding generation 
in the moment of attaining their mature age, all together. Each successive genera- 
tion would, in this way, come and go ofif the stage at a fixed moment, as individuals 
do now. Then, I say, the earth belongs to each of these generations during its 
course, fully and in its own right. For if the first could charge it with a debt, then 
the earth would belong to the dead, and not to the living generation. Then no 
generation can contract debts greater than may be paid during the course of its 
own existence. 

" What is true of generations succeeding one another at fixed epochs, as has been 
supposed for clearer conception, is true for those renewed daily, as in the actual 
course of nature. As a majority of the contracting generation will continue in being 
thirty-four years, and a new majority will then come into possession, the former 
may extend their engagements to that term, and no longer. The conclusion, then, 
is that neither the representatives of a nation, nor the whole nation itself assembled, 
can validly engage debts beyond what they may pay in their own time ; that is to 
say, within thirty-four years from the date of the engagement. 

" On similar ground, it may be proved, that no society can make a perpetual con- 
stitution, or even a perpetual law. * * * Every constitution, then, and 
every law, naturally expires at the end of thirty-four years. If it be enforced longer, 
it is an act of force, and not of right." 

It would be hard to carry the atomic, say rather the atheistic, theory of govern- 
ment beyond this. The reader will find the whole of this remarkable letter in the 
Memoir and Correspondence of Thomas Jefferson, edited by his grandson, vol. iii. 
p. 27. He will also find a very sensible and luminous refutation of its fallacies, m. 
Mr. Madison's reply. See Tucker's Life of Jefferson, vol. i. p. 292. 

Mr. Jefferson, it will be noticed, makes a generation, competent to contract debt, 
last thirty-four years. His Mississippi disciples appear to have based their esti- 
mate upon another set of " the bills of mortality ;" for they applied his doctrine to 
justify the repudiation of the Union Bank Bonds, in less than three jea,Ts after tlie 
faith of the State had been pledged for their payment I 

TOL. II. 11 



242 ' MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

mended that the charters of all the banks in the State 
should be repealed ; at the same time pointing out, with 
much force, the gross abuses which, he alleged, had crept 
into their management, especially into that of the Union 
Bank,* 

The animus of this recommendation best appears from the 
following Resolutions, which were immediately introduced 
into both branches of the Legislature : 

Whereas^ in the first section of the Constitution of the State 
of Mississippi, it is declared that all freemen, when they form a 
social compact, are equal in rights, and that no man, or set of 
men, are entitled to exclusive, separate public emoluments, or 
privileges from the community, but in consideration of public 
services ; and that all power is inherent in the people, and all 
free governments are founded on their authority, and established 
for their benefit, and they have, at all times, an inalienable and 
indefeasible right to alter or abolish the form of government in 
such manner as they may think expedient. 

And whereas, since all free governments derive their authority 

* " The faith of the State is pledged fox* the whole capital stock [of the Union 
Bank], and the property of all her citizens may hereafter be taxed to make up ita 
losses and defalcations. The right of the people, therefore, to know the conduct 
of all its agents and the liabilities of every one of its debtors, cannot be ques- 
tioned. 

" An examination of the list of stockholders of the Bank will show, that not one 
voter out of thirty in the State has obtained stock. Should the residue of the bonds 
ever be sold, the stockholders alone will be benefited by the sales. Is it consistent 
with the principles of justice, does it comport with good faith to render the property 
and persons of forty thousand freemen liable to be assessed to raise money for the 
especial use of thirteen hundred citizens, many of them men of great wealth, and 
none of whom have any peculiar claims to Legislative favor ? 

" The exercise of the repealing power is not in its nature judicial. The same 
power that grants charters, is competent to repeal them. Public policy and con- 
venience authorizes their creation, and if experience proves them to be detrimental, 
we are required to recall the privileges granted. Severe penalties should be im- 
posed for banking, after the repeal of a charter. The issuing of paper, in contra- 
vention of the repealing act, could be effectually checked "by fhe ahrogation of all 
liiws now inforce^ making it penal io forge such paper. The existing Banks can- 
not be bolstered up." The chartered banking capital of Mississippi, at that time, 
amounted to more thanffty-six millions of dollars. 



REPUDIATIO>- 243 

from the people, and are instituted for the preservation of their 
liberty, and promotion of their happiness, and as the function- 
aries of the government are simply the agents of power, appointed 
by the people, under a responsihihty to perform their will, they, 
as contra-distinguished from the body politic, do not possess one 
particle of power. It folloics^ that all laws which grant to the 
few the power to oppress the many, are contrary to the princi- 
ples of freedom, and repugnant to the rights of the people — and 
therefore repealable by the Supeeme Authoeity. 

And whereas^ a Banl^ Charter, from its nature, extends and 
necessarily confines the powers and privileges granted to the 
few, to the exclusion of the many ; therefore, if the powers and 
privileges, granted in a bank charter, operate against the public 
good, it is the duty of the Legislature, as the agents of the people, 
to revoke such charters. Therefore, 

Mesohed ty the Legislature of tlie State of Mississippi^ that 
from and after the passage of these resolutions, it sliall be 
deemed lawful and competent, to alter, amend, or abrogate any 
act of incorporation, which has been, or may hereafter be, granted 
under or by the laws of this State, or which is, or may be, found 
to exist within the territorial limits of the same, under any 
name, or for whatever purpose, whenever, in the opinion of the 
Legislature, the public good may require such alterations, 
amendment, or abrogation. 

In accordance with these resolutions, an anti-bank bill, of 
a highly revolutionary character, was framed, and forced 
through the House, against the formal protest of its 
weightiest members. All professed themselves favorable to 
a thorough reform of the banking system of the State ; but 
the majority were determined to effect it in a summary way, 
and by usurping the functions of the judiciary ; the minority 
argued that such a method would be essentially unjust, 
would fail to cure the evil, and, in the end, would iufect the 
body politic with a malady yet deeper and more virulent 
than the original disease. The bill was finally defeated in 



244 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

the Senate. But hardly had the congratulations ceased, 
which wise and good citizens exchanged with each other 
upon the event, when Gov. McNutt issued his notorious 
Proclamation, announcing to the world, that the State 
neither could nor would pay . the bonds issued under her 
great seal and signed by himself, in her name, on account of 
the Union Bank.* What American citizen, then sojourning 



* The history of the Union Bank is briefly this : It was incorporated, on the 
2l3t day of January, 1S37, under the title of " The Mississippi Union Bank," with a 
capital of $15,500,000 ; which capital was to be " raised by means of a loan, to be 
obtained by the Directors of the Institution." 

The 5th section of the act of incorporation declares, " that in order to facilitate 
the said Union Bank, for the said loan of $15,500,000, the faith of this State be and 
is hereby pledged, both for the security of the capital and interest, and that 7,500 
bonds of $2,000 each, bearing interest at the rate of 5 per cent., shall be signed by 
the Governor of the State, to the order of the Mississippi Union Bank, countersigned 
by the State Treasurer, and un*der seal of the State." 

On the 5th day of February, 1838, in accordance with a constitutional provision, 
this fifth section of the statute, whereby the faith of the State is pledged, was 
re-enacted by the Legislature, and approved by the Governor. 

On thie 15th of February, 1838, an act of the Legislature was passed, entitled " An 
act supplementary to an act to incorporate the subscribers to the Mississippi 
Union Bank." 

The chief argument against the liability of the State to pay the bonds, was, at 
first, that they had been sold in violation of the supplementary provision, which 
declares that " said bonds shall not be sold tinder their par value.^^ Gov. McNutt 
took this ground ; he did not repudiate the bonds as unconstitutional. But this 
argument could not stand; for although nominally sold under par, yet in conse- 
quence of the high rate of exchange between Jackson and New Orleans (where the 
payments were made) the State actually realized more than the " par value." The 
bonds sold amounted to $5,000,000. 

The legal argument of the anti-bond party assumed, in time, a much more sub- 
stantial and plausible shape. They contended that the Union Bank was not orga- 
nized under the original act, approved on the 21st of January, 1837, and 5th Februaiy, 
1838; but under that act, a7id the "supplementary act," approved 15th February, 
1838 ; that the supplementary act made many important changes in the original 
act, whereby the ultimate liability of the State was increased, and her security 
greatly lessened ; and that as the law, making these changes, had not been passed 
by two successive Legislatures, the whole statute, original and supplementary, was 
thus rendered null and void. "- 

Mr. Prentiss contended that the " supplementary act " did not materially change 
the liability of the State ; that its provisions were directly in order to carry out the 
intention of the original statute, and were strictly within the constitutional power 
of the Legislature ; that it in no way pledged the faith of the State for the paymeot 



RErUDIATION 245 

in the remotest corner of Christendom, or heathendom, wiR 
ever forget the sting of indignant shame which that procla- 
mation shot into his heart ! 

But nowhere did it excite such shame and indignation aa 
in Mississippi ; nowhere did its sentiments encounter such 
earnest, patient, and heroic opposition. If there is a body 
of men in the United States entitled to the moral respect 
and admiration of the American people, it is the noble band 
of Whig and Democratic bond-payers in Mississippi. Hardly 
had Gov. McNutt's Proclamation appeared, when a public 
meeting of the citizens of Adams county was called in 
reference to it. Adams was one of the oldest counties 
in the State, paid heavier taxes than any other, and was 
not more distinguished for wealth than for the intelligence, 
weight of character, and patriotic spirit of its population. 
The meeting was one of the largest popular assemblies 
ever seen in Natchez, and was fitly presided over by Col. 
Adam L. Bingaman — a native and honored son of the 
State. Ex-Governor Poindexter first spoke. Mr. Prentiss 
then addressed the people, in enforcement of the following 
preamble and resolutions : 

Whereas^ in the late Proclamation, issued by the Governor of 
this State, purporting to be in reference to sales or transfers of 
the State Bonds, now in possession of tlie Union Bank, a most 
violent, wanton, unwarranted, and unjustifiable assault upon the 
credit of our State, our character for honesty, and regard for 
pubhc and private faith, has been made, in his express assevera- 
tions o the inabihty of the State to pay her debts, and her 



of the Union Bank Bonds, there being no occasion for renewing that pledge, and 
therefore no necessity for referring it to another Legislature ; and, finally, that 
granted the supplementary act did modify or repeal important provisions in 
the original statute, as alleged by the advocates of Repudiation, even that would 
not free the State from a perfect constitutional, legal, and moral obligation to pay 
the bonds. 
There will be reference to the Plantera' Bank Bonds in the sequel. 



246 MEMOIR OP S. S. PRENTISS. 

unwillingness to do so, were she able, under which imputation 
we will not silently rest : Therefore — 

Resohed^ That we, as citizens of this county, utterly repudiate 
and denounce this slander upon the honor of the State ; and that 
we doubt not, nor do we hesitate to assert, that every county in 
the State will rebuke this attack with the just indignation and 
contempt that we feel. 

Resolved^ That the fit prototype of the Proclamation — Gov. 
McNutt's recommendation to legalize forgery, was an insult to 
the Legislature, an injury to the State, and must be regarded a8 
infamous by all who hold dear the reputation of Mississippi. 

Resolved^ That as citizens of the county of Adams, we repel 
the calumny that we are neither willing nor able to redeem the 
public obligations, as far as they may fall upon us ; and that we 
are satisfied that the whole State must despise and condemn the 
allegation of the Governor, and will vindicate her honor and 
honesty. 



An intelligent gentleman, who was present, writing the 
next day, describes the speech as " upholding the honor, 
dignity, and character of Mississippi in a manner which 
entranced the audience. Mr. Prentiss is an honor to the 
American nation. He is now, in the morning of his fame, 
and long may he live to use those high endowments, that 
belong only to the truly great I" 

This was, probably, the first public meeting ever held in 
the United States to denounce Repudiation. Many Demo- 
crats, as well as Whigs, were present, and openly avowed 
their hostility to the Proclamation ; while, in most other 
States of the Union, the great body of the Democratic party 
regarded the doctrine with as much detestation as their 
political opponents The memorable words of Mr. Calhoun 
expressed not mereiy the sentiment of that great and pure- 
minded statesman, or of the gallant State to which they 
refer ; they expressed the substantial feeling of the wisest 



: HIS COURSE ON REPUDIATION. 241 

and best uien of all parties, throughout the country. They 
only echoed the real voice of the American People ; 

T pledge ^iiyself that South Carolina will pay punctually every 
dollar she owes, should it take the last cent, without inquiring 
whether it was spent wisely or foolishly. Should I in this be by 
possibility mistaken — should she tarnish her unsullied honor, and 
bring discredit on our common country, by refusing to redeem 
her plighted faith (which I hold impossible), deep as is my devo- 
tion to her, and mother as she is to me, I would disown her. 

A collection of Mr. Prentiss' principal speeches on the Bond 
Question, correctly reported, would be a lasting monument to 
his legal attainments, the fervor of his patriotism, his daunt- 
less courage, and the nobleness of his political principles. 
Several of these speeches were among the greatest he ever 
made ; and all of them were marked by an extraordinary 
energy and elevation of tone. Whenever he spoke on this 
subject, he resembled more an old Hebrew prophet than a 
modern politician. With unsparing severity, and as if 
specially commissioned by Heaven, he warned the people 
against the demagogues, who were trying to lead them 
astray, set before them the sin of violating the public faith, 
and plainly foretold the disastrous consequences which would 
spring out of their endorsing such a policy. He denounced 
it as alike foolish and wicked ; it would prove, in the end, 
as fatal a robbery upon their pockets as upon their charac- 
ter. In this strain he, during four years, everywhere lifted 
up his voice ; it mattered not whether he was addressing a 
polished audience at Natchez, a knot of loiterers at the 
corner of the street in Yicksburg, a gathering of back- 
woodsmen, or a crowd well sprinkled with the repudiating 
legislators at Jackson ; he never varied his speech, except 
to lash the iniquity with rebukes still more scathing, when 
he saw its authors or abettors before him ! 



248 



MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 



It is not my business to defend the terrible severity of 
language which he allowed himself in attacking Repudiation. 
On this point the reader must exercise his own judgment. 
But Mr. Prentiss deliberately justified himself, on the 
ground that, as the evil assaulted the very being of society, 
it was entitled to no quarter ; that it was a sort of 
moral treason to parley with it. And yet his bitterest 
speeches against Repudiation were so full of wit, humor, 
and splendid eloquence, that they fascinated the very men 
upon whose heads he was pouring out the vials of his 
wrath I 

He was not always, however, in the denunciatory mood. 
Sometimes his tone was mild and persuasive ; his manner, 
" sweet as summer ;" his argument, addressed to the heart 
rather than the head. At such times, the effect of his 
appeals was irresistible. Forgetting, for the moment, the 
darker side of his subject, and borne upon the pinions of 
reason and strong imagination, he would soar into the 
sphere of ideal truth, and thence shed down light and beauty 
upon his wondering auditors ! Or, taking them by the 
hand, as it were, he would draw tears from their eyes by 
portraying, with a pathos whose deep sincerity none could 
doubt, the sad misfortunes which Repudiation had brought, 
and would continue to bring, upon thousands of poor men 
and women, widows, and orphans, old soldiers and sailors, 
retired upon their little all from the storms of life ; upon 
illustrious poets and divines too — men, whose good opinion 
could add weight to the character of a nation. " Such are 
the persons," after this manner he would proceed, " such 
are the persons, fellow-citizens, who have entrusted their 
earthly subsistence to the protection of your laws ; who 
have confided in the great seal of this young and chivalric 
State ; many of them are scattered among the beautiful 
hills and valleys of our mother-country. Shall their reli- 



SPEECH AT FAYETTE. 249 

ance upon our honor, upon our plighted faith, be put to 
shame ? You, mothers and daughters of the land — you, 
in whose bosoms the vestal flame of patriotism never goes 
out — what response do your fair lips give to this question ? 
But I know what response you will give. It is that which 
your venerated mothers — those glorious dames of the Revo- 
lution — true Deborahs and mothers in Israel, would have 
given before you 1 Indeed, you are more interested in the 
success of right principles than we of the sterner sex ; for 
you would lose more by their defeat. Your own holy 
instincts prompt you in this matter. You know that the 
high destinies of your sex can only be accomplished under 
the protection of good government, and the genial influence 
of a settled social organization. You shrink with natural 
horror from the disorganizing doctrines and wicked practices 
of the Repudiating party. God bless the fair ladies of 
Mississippi I They fight against our enemy even as * the 
stars in their courses fought against Sisera P " 

For the following spirited description of one of Mr. 
Prentiss' cpeeches on Repudiation, the reader is indebted to 
Joseph D. Shields, Esq., of Natchez : 

The first time I ever heard liim was at what might he called a 
glorification meeting, at Jackson, called to celebrate the Whig 
triumph of 1840. I confess his effort did not come up to my 
expectation, and the remark was made that he had not dona 
himself justice. The only part of his speech that impressed me, 
was that in which he begged the old line Democrats and the old 
line Whigs to keep their armor untarnished by the bliglit of 
Repudiation. 

It was by mere accident that I was at Fayette on the occasion 
to which you allude. It was noised about that Peentiss was to 
speak, and instantly the Court House was crowded. The 
subject was one of vital importance, and he laid out his whole 

VOL. II. 11* 



260 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

strength upon it. During the delivery of the speech, he was 
frequently interrupted by a very zealous repudiator, a man well 
known in the community, and old enough to be his father. 
These interruptions were extremely annoying to the audience, a 
majority of whom were warm admirers of Prentiss. He, how- 
ever, never for an instant lost his equanimity ; and while the 
crowd were shouting out, "Down with him!" "Prextiss!" 
*' Prentiss!" "Out with him I" "Down! down!" your bro- 
ther, with a smile of ineffable sweetness, " begged his fellow- 
citizens to allow his venerable friend to proceed, as he would be 
glad to hear him." 

The scope of the old man's remarks was to make the Whigs 
particeps criminis^ by having aided in the creation of the banks. 
" That's the very point Pm coming to," said Prentiss. " In this 
matter, fellow-citizens, I know no Whig nor Democrat. I know 
those only who uphold the principles of honor, and the plighted 
faith of Mississippi." After repeated attempts to embarrass the 
speaker, in every one of which his guns were adroitly turned 
upon himself, the old gentleman, who was perfectly sincere in 
liis opposition, picked up his hat in a rage, and left the Court 
House, saying, as he left, that he had taken a "blue pill" that 
morning! 

Mr. Prentiss' speech was not so much an argument on the 
constitutional question, but rather a condemnation of the spirit 
of lawlessness, which was becoming so prevalent. Giving to 
the candidates then before the people credit for honesty of 
intention, " Still," said he, " they were mere ho^s upon the sur- 
face, showing where the big fish were nibbling at the bait 
below." The war now waged against the bonds of the Union 
Bank, involved a principle which, consistently carried out, would 
lead inevitably to the repudiation of all chartered riglits, debts, 
and public obligations. His main attack was upon the doctrine, 
boldly advanced by some politicians of the State, that the Union 
Bank was created by one generation, that another generation 
had come into existence, and therefore ought not to bear the 
burden of liquidating debts they did not contract, and the bene- 
fits of which they did not enjoy 



SPEECH AT FAYETTE. 261 

I can only give you a few of his ideas, for no stenographer 
could report him. Admitting, then, said he, the principle, how 
are you going to apply it ? Who can mark where one genera- 
tion begins and another generation ends ? The stream of time 
Las a continuous, everlasting flow ; you cannot separate its par- 
ticles, and say, this much belongs to your generation, and this to 
mine. The hfe of society is one and immortal ; it cannot bo 
thus broken into disconnected fragments. Besides, how dare 
we claim and enjoy the innumerable benefits derived from our 
ancestors, if we repudiate the obhgations they imposed upon 
us ? Our liberty, our constitution and laws, our social institu- 
tions, our very roads and bridges, our pubhc buildings, all won 
for us by the toil, sacrifices, or blood of our fathers, how can 
we have the face to appropriate these vast benefits, and not 
take the incumbrance which they bring with them ? In truth, 
every good thing that we have ^ mortgaged ; earth, sea, and 
sky — aye, the very air we breathe, as disease and sickness can 
bear witness. We inherit no blessing, no right or advantage, 
which is not ours in trust, which is not linked to some duty. 
But it is vain for me, at this late day, to attempt even a brief 
synopsis of his remarks. All I know is, that he made the 
most powerful and brilliant argument I ever listened to. His 
propositions were so plain that a child could understand them ; 
and his elucidation, grew brighter and brighter at every step. 
The garlands that his glowing fancy wove and scattered over 
his theme, never marred the simple majesty of the argument ; 
they seemed, in fact, to give it strength, while they enhanced 
its beauty. 

At the opening of the address, I observed two old men (I 
think one was a Whig, and the other a Democrat) plant them- 
selves directly in front of the speaker, one on either side ; as he 
proceeded their attention became riveted ; they pressed forward 
and gazed into his face, as if they thought him inspired. Before 
he had concluded, I saw them weeping like children I When he 
had finished, one exclaimed, " Ain't he the greatest man that 
ever lived?" The other said, "If I could make such a speech 
as that, I would be wilUng to lie down and die the next minute !" 



252 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

These, of course, were extravagant encomiums ; but I give thera 
as specimens, to show the wonderful effects of his eloquence. 

I know not what preparation he had made for this masterly 
effort. He certainly had no idea of speaking when he went to 
Fayette, as he was there on professional business. Tt was, if I 
mistake not, at that term that he defeated the hopes of a 
young man, who was seeking to break his father's will. I was 
told that after the jury had returned a verdict against him, the 
son came to Mr. Prentiss and used language of the following 
purport. " Well, Mr. P., you have taken my property, you have 
blasted my prospects; but that true and beautiful tribute you 
paid to the memory of my father, almost repays me for all that I 
have lost." 

Another speech, which produced a deep impression at the 
time, was made at Yicksbufg, Nov. 6, 1843. The occasion 
was a public discussion between himself and a gentleman of 
the Democratic party, who has since attained high distinc- 
tion in its ranks, upon the constitutionality of the Union 
Bank Bonds. His address was remarkable for the superb 
imagery, in which he described the mystic chain that binds 
together the different generations of mankind, and preserves 
unbroken the moral life of society. It was his last public 
assault upon Repudiation. Even while he was speaking, 
the question was being decided at the ballot-box, and in 
favor of the anti-bond party.* 

The reader may be amused with the following editorial 



* A gentleman of legal distinction, who heard this speech, writes, Dec. 12, 1853 : 
"Tour brother was ridiculing and denouncing the notion that one generation 
could not bind another, and called on any one to explain what was meant by the 

proposition. Major , who had never before appeared in public, undertook to 

state what the doctrine on that point was. Your brother's response was the most 
courteously severe and magnificently eloquent thing I ever heard, even from him. 
But it was ten years ago, and nothing is left on my mind but the vivid impression 
of the power and beauty of the speech. We heard him then every day, and did 
not specially mark and treasure up his great sayings." 



SPEECH AT VICKSBURG. 253 

notice of this speech, taken from the VicJcshurg Sentinel, a 
leading organ of the Democratic party in Mississippi. It 
appeared in the paper of Nov. 1, 1843 



According to agreement, the Hon. S. S. Peentiss and Major 
met in public discussion, at the Court House yesterday. 



We are not prepared to give an outline of the arguments used, 
or the points relied on, by either party. Suffice it to say, that it 
was an honorable, gentlemanly, fair discussion as to the consti- 
tutionality of the Union Bank Bonds, creditable to the parties, 
and the cause. 

Mr. Peentiss certainly made the best, and most logical argu- 
ment we have ever either heard, or read AS emanating feom 
THE bond-payees, and stating that our plain planter successfully 
maintained his position against S. S. Peentiss, is saying that 

Major is no ordinary man. It is needless to assert that 

Mr. Peentiss has not changed our views on the Union Bank 
Bond question, and that we thinh his arguments will not bear 
the process of analysis ; but we must admit they were specious, 
plausible, and no doubt, to many would seem convincing. In 
saying that S. S. Peentiss is a great man, that, deservedly, he 
should be at the head of the party, not alone in Mississippi, but 
throughout the Union, let no one accuse us of any sinister 
motive. "We express our sentiments of the gentleman 7iow^ 
merely for the purpose of showing the gigantic Goliah, with 
whom our little David has had to struggle, and the honor that 
is due him in coming out of that struggle untouched and 
unscathed. Out of it untouched has he come, and in our opinion 
triumphantly, successfully, and honorably. 

The necessity which Major was under of visiting some of 

the precincts where votes were being received, prevented a pro- 
longation of the discussion. To review some of Mr. Peentiss' 
propositions, we had resolved ; but as the decision of the people 
on the bond question is now in pendency, and there is no fur- 
ther time for hearing counsel on either side, we decline doing 

80. 



254 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

For the following additional account of Mr. Prentis^ 
course on Repudiation, and of a speech delivered by him at 
Jackson, in 1843, I am indebted to Col. Joseph B. Cobb, 
of Lowndes County, Mississippi, a gentleman distinguished 
not less for his literary culture and attainments than for his 
social w^orth. The reader will not blame me for retaining 
the interesting introductory notices : 

LoNQwooD, near Columbus, Misa,, May 8, 1863. 

My Dear Sir ; — 

Your favor of the 30th March reached me some 
weeks since, and I beg you to believe that nothing but engage- 
ments of a pressing character, would have so long delayed 
ray reply to the inquiries you therein proposed. Nor do I 
feel certain that I am even now fully prepared to give you a 
satisfactory answer, because your inquiries embrace much that 
might well occupy a history rather than a letter. 

I became intimately acquainted with your distinguished brother 
more than ten years since. His name, his fame, and his person 
were known to me many years previously, but it was not until 
January of 1842, during my service in the Mississippi Legislature, 
that I formed with him that close tie of mutual regard and 
friendship, which 1 fondly believe lasted to his dying day ; whilst, 
on my part, it has survived the intervention of death. He was 
tlien in the full bloom of manhood. Disease had not attacked 
Lis constitution, and his unusual vigor of health, and remarkable 
capability for enduring physical labor and exercise, were 
observed by all who knew him. His strength, even considered 
independently of his lameness, was truly astonishing. I was 
told that he had sometimes, when in a hilarious humor, been 
seen to lift stout men in his arms, and seat them on beds or 
tables, just as the frolic of the moment suggested ; while, as a 
walker, few were able to tire him down. I have ridden in his 
company on horseback, and although he generally mounted a 
spirited animal, I never knew him to lose his balance, or meet 
with a fall. I mention these facts because many have supposed 



LErrER FROM COL. COBB. 255 

that in consequence of bis well-known infirmity, he was not 
fitted for athletic exercises. 

But it was the eminent social worth, the amiable qualities of 
heart, and the unswerving tenacity and sincerity of bis friend- 
ships, which made your brother so beloved by all who enjoyed 
the honor of knowing him intimately. Many of his warmest 
and most devoted personal friends were found, too, in the ranks 
of that party whose principles he daily denounced with such 
violence, and ridiculed so scathingly. Among these, not feeling 
that I violate any rule of decorum or propriety, I may mention 
the distinguished name of John Anthony Quitman. It seemed 
to me that your brother really loved this gentleman ; and it was 
evident to all who ever saw them in company, that the feeling 
was reciprocal. 

As to your brother's course, in relation to the unfortunate 
subject of Repudiation, I think 1 may safely say that he led 
off in the first speech that was ever made to any considerable 
audience in Mississippi in opposition to that most pernicious and 
unworthy doctrine. This speech was made in the Hall of the 
House of Representatives, by especial invitation, during the 
adjourned session of the Legislature in January of 1841.* He 
was not then a member, but the address was made to the Con- 
vention of the bond-paying party. I regret to say that I did not 
enjoy the pleasure of liearing this speech ; but a mutual friend, 
Dr. J. M. Cunningham, of Noxubee, who is a gentleman of high 

* The meeting at Natchez, however, was some ten months earlier. In the com'se 
of 1S41, too, he addressed the people on the Bond Question whenever he had oppor- 
tunity. The following letter, signed by a number of the most respectable citizens of 
Jefiferson county, shows in what light he was regarded by the Anti-Repudiators : 

" Hon. 8. S. Prentiss. f " Fayette, Sept. 19, 1841. 

" Dear Sir :— 

" We, the undersigned, some of whom heard your speech at Vicksburg, 
«ome time since, on the Bond Question, in which you proved that the State is con- 
stitutionally, legally, and morally bound to pay her bonds sold on account of the 
Union Bank, most respectfully request a copy for publication in The Bond Payer^ 
published in this place, and edited by G. Earl Martin, Esq. 

" We have ever looked upon you as the leader (permit us to use the term) of tha 
great Whig party in this State ; and now, as Whigs, we claim that your views oa 
Uiia question may be made public as above requested." — Ed. 



256 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRE^'TISS. 

attainments, and as fully alive to the impressions of eloquence 
as any person, has often spoken of Mr. Peextiss' eifort on that 
occasion as being one of the most powerful and splendid of those 
wonderful flights of oratory which distinguished his public 
career, and which marked him as the man of his generation. 

The elections of that year, however, resulted most disastrously 
to the bond-paying cause. The question of Repudiation usurped 
respectability, and signally bullied contempt. Gov. Tucker was 
borne into the chair of chief magistrate of the State by a 
majority that left no doubt as to the popularity of the doc- 
trine, and which thoroughly disheartened the party who had 
supported the payment of the Union Bank Bonds. Not- 
withstanding the eminent private worth of Gov. Tucker, and 
his deserved popularity as a citizen, the two succeeding 
years seemed to cast a dark shadow over the character and 
destinies of the State, which evidently disquieted the advocates 
of Repudiation, while those who differed with them felt 
almost ashamed to leave the borders of Mississippi. Prominent 
among those who openly proclaimed the latter sentiment, 
was your illustrious brother. Even during his visits to New 
Orleans, where much of his business was transacted, he sought 
shelter from the gaze and curiosity of the people, candidly 
declaring that he felt really ashamed to receive any public testi- 
monials of esteem, " so long as the Mack flag of Repudiation 
waved triumphantly over the fertile plains and rich valleys of 
his adopted State.''' This is his own strong and figurative lan- 
guage, and I well remember the deep emphasis and subduing 
eloquence with which he uttered the bitter thought. No one 
could ever have learned to imitate the manner and tone with 
which, when laboringlmder aroused sensibility, he used to pro- 
nounce the word Repudiation. It seemed as if the concentrated 
disgust of a whole party was thrown into the effort. His 
expression was that of a man who loathed some nauseous draught 
that necessity forced him to swallow ; while the natural lisp 
that impeded his utterance would be prolonged into an angry 
hiss, more startling than tliat of the coiled serpent. 

Notwithstanding the signal defeat of 1841, the bond-paying 



LETTER FROM COL. COBB. 25T 

party rallied gallantly for the gnbernatorial conflict of 1843. A 
State Convention assembled at Jackson, in June of that year, of 
which Colonel Bingaman was President. Your brother was 
also a member, being a delegate from the county of Warren. 
At this time every otfice in the State, from the highest almost 
to the lowest, was in the hands of the anti-bond party, save 
alone the bench of the High Court of Errors and Appeals. Of 
this lofty tribunal, Wm. L. Sharkey, Esq., present United States 
Consul at Havana, was Chief Justice. His elevated standing, 
his eminent and acknowledged ability, his purity of character, 
and his general popularity, turned on him the eyes of the whole 
"Whig party of the State, as being the most suitable candidate 
that could be offered to the people for the office of Governor. 
There was scarcely to be found a single man of his party who 
was not pressing his nomination. The members of the Con- 
vention were very nearly unanimous in his behalf; and when 
the Nominating Committee was raised, no one entertained the 
shadow of a doubt as to the result of their deliberations. Mr, 
Prentiss had not been present at the forenoon session of the 
Convention, being engaged in the argument of a very important 
case before the Superior Court of Chancery. He had been 
named as a member of the Nominating Committee, and accord- 
ingly met that body at noon. He was surprised, indeed almost 
deprived of his equanimity, when he found that Judge Sharkey 
was about to be invited from the bench of the Supreme Court 
to become a candidate for Governor; and, mainly through his 
exertions, the Committee reconsidered their action, and brought 
into the Convention the name of another candidate for tliat 
high office. This created a perfect furor of dissatisfaction 
among the members of that body. Complaints and murmurs 
arose from all quarters of the hall. No one objected to the 
gentleman who was offered, but nearly everybody preferred 
Judge Sharkey. During all this excitement, Mr. Prentiss, clad 
carelessly in a plain summer suit, his collar open, and his fine 
flowing locks streaming unarranged, and almost wildly, sat per- 
fectly calm and silent. Tiie time had not arrived at which he 
decided to mingle in the strife, and assign the reasons for his 



258 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

conduct. At length, a member addressed the President, and 
proposed to strike out the name of the person reported from the 
Committee as the candidate, and to insert that of Wm. L. Shar- 
key. The motion was not even seconded, before Mr. Prentiss 
sprang, rather than rose, to his feet, threw his well-known stick 
in its accustomed place, to support his infirm limb, and advancing 
energetically to the front of his desk, began to pour forth one 
of those powerful and overwhelming torrents of eloquence for 
which he has become so famed. The peculiar sound of his cane, 
as he limped along from his seat (a sound which is well remem- 
bered in Mississippi, and which never failed to draw universal 
attention whenever, during his service in Congress, he entered 
the Hall of Representatives), at once stilled the audience into the 
most perfect silence. Every one could see that the humor was 
upon him, and that he had been touched by the magic wand of 
his ministering Genius. He assaulted the motion as striking a 
death-blow at the already crippled character of Mississippi. With 
more than usual skill, he drew a graphic picture of the whole 
army of repudiators, " with their ragged, pirate flag, borne 
shamelessly in the midst of them, advancing in swarms to do 
their murderous, infamous work." He described them as 
"Huns, guided by leaders who owned all the atrocious prin- 
ciples of Attila without possessing his courage or his talents." 
Alluding to the defeat which the bond-payers had sustained 
at the last elections, he spoke, with power unsurpassed, 
against that policy which dictated to us, " after having lost the 
main battle, and been driven back from every post and routed 
at all points, to draw our greatest leader from the strong citadel 
of the Supreme Court, to encounter an uncertain fate in a hazard- 
ous campaign." This 'citadel unsurrendered, he declared that 
the "wild beast of Repudiation" was restrained from striking, 
at least, the last fatal and irrecoverable blow on the already 
prostrate name of the State. " Here, after having scattered his 
vile foam, and exhaled his pestilential breath in every other 
quarter, he could at last be muzzled and strangled." He then 
spoke with deep feeling of the purity, learning, and spotless 
character of Judge Sharkey, and declared that " the honest men 



LETTER FROM COL. COBB. 259 

of Mississippi could not spare him from the bench at such a 
time." His court " was the last refuge left under the inflictions 
of this worse than Egyptian plague," and they would rise 
up in one sohd mass to protest against his being surrendered— 
against the "letting go of our only hold, to flounder amidst the 
uncertainties of a political campaign." He saitl, with an expres- 
sion of countenance that thrilled the audience, that "Judge 
Sharkey should not be forced to soil the pure ermine of judicial 
eminence by seeking an engagement with this unclean monster." 
Still, he continued, it was " essential to fight the beast, pestifer- 
ous as it was." He had read in Roman history that the march 
of a whole army had been once arrested by coming in contact 
with a huge serpent, whose very breath poisoned the entire 
atmosphere around them. Regulus halted his columns, and 
decided that safety called for the destruction of the monster, 
even though many human lives should be the forfeit. If the 
serpent, as was naturally to be expected, should follow on their 
march, the whole army must inevitably be swept away by pesti- 
lence ; and thus, day after day, were detachments drawn out, 
until the destroyer was in turn destroyed." " Our march," he 
continued, " to fame and to greatness as a State had been 
impeded by the intervention of this vile serpent of Repudiation." 
"Its hiss was heard from every hill and through every broad 
valley of Mississippi. Already its venom had blighted their 
blooms and freshness ; the very air by wliich they were 
nourished was corroded with poison, and sure death seemed 
to be the fate of all who ventured within the tainted precincts. 
One only spot was safe from its noxious influences, and we should 
guard closely every avenue of approach, ratlier than open the 
way for the incursion of the fell destroyer. He should be fought 
by the subordinates, the rank and file of the army, but that all 
America would curse and ridicule the poI-icy which the adoption 
of the resolution in question must force upon the bond-paying 
party." 

This, my dear sir, is a very tame and imperfect account of one 
of the most transcendent speeches to which I have ever listened, 
or ^ver expect to listen again. Some allowance for this imper- 



260 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

fection is due me, however, m consideration of the many years 
that have elapsed since the period of its delivery. I would 
occasionally try to charge my memory with some striking and 
beautiful illustration as it flowed from the speaker's lips ; but, 
like all present, I was too much captivated by the continuous 
roll of oratory, and the splendid outbursts of genius, to store 
away any particular expression. What I have here given is 
correct, and was gathered entirely from the general impressions 
which rested on my mind ; and I will venture to say that it is 
the first time a single line or thought of that matchless effort 
was ever put on paper. I fear that there is some risk in my 
endeavour to do so, but I felt that you were entitled to all that 
I remembered. 

The speech lasted several hours ; at its close, the mover of the 
resolution jumped up with a precipitancy that excited universal 
merriment, and withdrew it by general consent, declaring his 
motive to have been only to test the sense of the meeting. 
"When Mr. Peentiss began, I believe, that if the resolution had 
come to a vote, it would have largely prevailed, so great was the 
confidence in Judge Sharkey's ability, and in his availability. 
But the favorite of Mississippi had placed the matter in a new 
light, and when the speech was ended, Judge Sharkey could 
scarcely have obtained a vote for the nomination, even had ho 
desired, beloved, as he certainly was, by every member of the 
Convention.* 

The life of such a man as S. S. Peentiss ought not to remain 
long uncommemorated. Were I to undertake to write all I 
know and think of in connection with it, my memoranda would 
fill a volume. I sincerely hope, dear sir, that this rambling, and 
but for its subject, I should fear, very dull letter, may give you 
some small aid in carrying out your most worthy and fraternal 



♦ An intelligent gentleman, who heard this speech, and also the two which pre- 
ceded it on the same day— that before the Chancery Court, and that before the 
Nominating Committee— declared that either of the three was " enough to immor- 
taUze its author." — Ed. 



LETTER TO WORDSWORTH. 261 

design. A.nd now, wishing you every success, I beg leave to 
subscribe mvself 

Your friend and obedient servant, 

• Joseph B. Cobb, 

The following letter will explain itself. It was written, 
it should be observed, before the election, which resulted 
in the final defeat of the Bond-payers. 

\ 

8. S. PEENTISS TO WILLIAM WOEDSWOETH. \ 

ViCKSBURG, Mississippi, Feb. 5, 1848 

My Deae Sie : — 

My brother, who has just returned from abroad, 
informs me that, while in England, he enjoyed the 'gratification 
of paying you a visit, during which he learned that some mem- 
bers of your family were interested to a considerable amount in 
certain Mississippi bonds, which you considered worthless, sup- 
posing them to have been repudiated by the State of Mississippi. 
I take great pleasure, at his suggestion, in giving you some 
information on the subject. There are two classes of Mississippi 
bonds, issued at different periods, and for different purposes. 
One class has been repudiated by the legislative body, but the 
other has not been ; nor is the validity of this latter cla^s ques- 
tioned at all. It is true no provision has been made during 
several years for the payment of the interest ; but this neglect 
has arisen from other causes than that of repudiation. 

The bonds in w^hich you are interested, I perceive by a 
memorandum of my brother's, belong to this class. Tlieir 
validity is acknowledged on all hands; nor has any pretence 
ever been set up of illegality, or irregularity — either in their 
inception or sale. / have no doubt of the ultimate payment, 
of these honds, both principal and interest; — and in this opin- 
ion I am sustained by all intelligent men in the country. IIow 
soon provision will be made for their liquidation, it is difficult 
to predict with any certainty. I am of opinion that in two 
or three years, the State will provide for the payment of the 



262 MEilOIU OF S. S. TREXTISS. 

interest, and place the ultimate payment of the principal beyond 
all cavil. I would, therefore, advise the holders of this class of 
Mississippi bonds to avoid sacrificing them.* 

The doctrine of repudiation has had a momentary and apps 
rent triumph in this State ; but its success was accidental. It is 
not an exponent of the opinions of a majority of the people ; no^ 
is there the slightest danger of the principle becoming perma 
nent. Indeed, it receives no countenance amongst honest and 
honorable men, and it is my deliberate opinion that four-fifth? 
of the people of this State utterly abhor repudiation, and looJ* 
upon its supporters as the advocates of fraud and dishonesty 
But you will perhaps say this opinion is paradoxical; your Leg 
islature, under your form of Government, is chosen by the people 
and expresses its will. This Legislature has, by a deliberate act 
repudiated' a portion, at least, of the public obligations. Tha^ 
act is the act of tlie people. How, then, can it be said, tha^ 
four-fifths are opposed to what all have done? I admit tht 
force of the question, and the apparently anomalous character 
of my proposition; still it is correct — I know it is so, from mj 
own observation ; and in this case it has happened — as it doei' 
frequently in others — that a measure may be carried in th^ 
legislative body, at variance with the wishes and opinions of 
four-fifths of the electors. In the present instance, repudiatioL 
resulted out of a contest between two political parties, though i^ 
formed no element of either. These two parties were very equally 
divided, and a slight influence was sufficient to give to either the 
preponderance. At this juncture, a few reckless and profligate 
demagogues, observing the embarrassed and distressed state of 
the country, which was then at its height, seized upon the ide^ 
of repudiating the public debt, and threw it, as make- weight 
into their own side of the political scales. A few persons, for 
the most part among the ignorant and credulous, aharmed at th^ 



* The bonds referred to were those of the Planters' Bank. Some years after thf 
date of this letter, a few of these bonds were accepted by the State, I believe, in pay- 
ment of certain dues. But nearly the whole of tlieni, amounting now, principal and 
interest, to several millions of dollars, remain still unpaid ; nor has any provisiou 
been made for their liquidation. — Ed. 



LETTER TO TVORDSWOKTH. 263 

thought of increased taxation, which the demagogues told them 
would consume all their substance, and excited by artful appeals 
to their prejudices, and bold assertions of fraud on the part of 
the purchasers of the public bonds, were led away by this dis- 
honest doctrine, and thus enabled their false leaders to succeed 
in placing their party in power.* Thus the repudiators, though 
but a small body, and wholly incapable, as a party by them- 
selves, have been able, by holding the balance of power between 
the two great and legitimate parties of the State, to foist them- 
selves into temporary importance and apparent success. But 
those who made use of them, are already ashamed of their infa- 
mous allies, and repudiators are now repudiated by all honest 
and honorable men. 



* A brief editorial of the Vicksburg Sentinel^ of Nov. 7, 1843, will show the sort 
of argument and appeal here referred to : 

" THE WORK GOES BRAVELY ON. 

" Far as we can see, the gallant ' Subterraneans' are doing their duty manfully 
and well ! The battle will be well fought, and if the enemy gain the victory, it will 
be well earned and hard won. 

" Stand up to the rack to-day, boys ! Let those who did not vote yesterday come 
forward and do so to-day ; and let those who have voted, and who love the cause, 
aid in bringing up our corps of reserve to the charge. On, Anti-bondmen, on! Old 
Warren, and the City of the Hills, must be rescued ! 

"Your birthrights, and those of your children, are at stake; if you are men— if 
you cherish the great fundamental principle which your fathers proclaimed, July 
4th, '76 — if you wish to give the death-blow to funding and consequent taxation 
throughout the world — if you have humanity enough not to increase the pangs of 
starvation, under which three-fourths of your fellow-beings in bond and king-ridden 
Europe are writhing — go, we say, to the polls to-day, and record your vote against 
the iniquitous system. The present crisis is no ordinary one ; the issue is not con- 
fined to Mississippi — no, it is a contest in which is marshalled, on one side, a 
privileged aristocracy, moneyed influence, bonds, and endless taxation ; and, 
on the other. Freedom, Justice, and Humanity ! One rally, one charge, and the 
victory which is now in sight will be ours ! !" 

How long the writer of this patriotic effusion had been in the United States, I do 
not know. He was an impulsive, warm-fiearted Irishman, and was soon after 
killed in a duel. His predecessor in the editorship of the Sentinel, was Dr. James 
Hagan, also au Irishman, and far superior to poor Ryan in ability. He was, indeed, 
a man of a good deal of intellectual vigor, extremely bitter, like most foreignerf 
of his class, in his hatred of England, and a violent Repudiator. He was killed Id 
a street affray growing out of an editorial article. — Ed. 



264 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

In times of great public dir^tress, I have no doubt the doctrine 
of repudiation will be advanced by unprincipled politicians, in 
the difterent States, and perhaps, occasionally, with apparent and 
temporary success ; but I feel perfectly certain, that it can never 
become permanent in any State. It cannot obtain as a public 
policy, until a majority of the people cease to be individually and 
privately honest. Notwithstanding the disgrace and obloquy 
which have, to a certain degree justly, fallen upon this State, its 
citizens are, in the main, honest, and look upon the authors of 
their degradation with as little favor as you do. 

I owe you, perhaps, an apology for going beyond the object 
of my letter (which was simply to inform you that the bonds you 
hold have not been repudiated by tlie Government, and that I 
beheve they will be ultimately paid) ; if so, I trust I shall find 
it, in my desire to relieve at least a portion of my countrymen 
from the imputation of intentional dishonesty in the eyes of a 
poet and philosopher, whose good opinion is capable of adding 
weight even to the character of a nation. 

If I can at any time serve you in this, or any other matter, it 
will afford rae much gratification to do so. 

Very respectfully, 

Your obd't servant, 

S. S. Peentiss. 

To Wm. Wordsworth, Esq., Rydal Mount, England. 

P.S. As I am, of course, an utter strauger to you, I will refer 
you to Mr. Everett, the American minister at your Court, in rela- 
tion to the weight which should be attached to my opinions on 
this subject, should you deem it of sufficient importance to give 
them any consideration. 

I cannot refrain from giving Mr. Wordsworth's reply, 
although addressed to myself, as it affords a glimpse of the 
unhappy effects that have followed the non-payment of the 
Mississippi bonds in the case of thousands, whose grievances 
never reached the public ear. Grace Darling was the 
** heroine" alluded to in the letter. 



LETTER FROM WORDSWORTH. 265 

May the day speedily dawn which shall witness the last 
vestige of Repudiation on American soil I And Heaven 
forbid it should ever again be desecrated by such an evil I 
Better that whole cities be engulphed by an earthquake. 
Vanished cities could be rebuilt, and again become the 
abodes of prosperous men ; but what power can wipe out 
the " damned spot " of public fraud and dishonor ? 

WIl-LIAM WORDSWORTH TO THE EDITOR. 

Rtdal Mount, near Ambleside, March 23, 1843. 

My Dear Sir: — 

Your letter, which had for some time been rather 
anxiously looked for, reached me by yesterday's post. I sin- 
cerely thank you for it, and for the pains which you have so 
kindly taken upon the subject. Nor are we less indebted to 
your brother for his letter, and for his entering into particulars 
in the manner he has so considerately and fully done. I feel 
unwilling to trouble him with a letter, judging that ray acknow- 
ledgments will be as acceptably conveyed through you. Pray 
let him know how much we are obliged to him ; and say that, 
for many reasons, we shall be glad to hear from him again, as 
soon as anything materially affecting the question may occur. 
The personal interest whicli I attach to it is not on account of 
the sum of money that is at stake, as the condition of the pro- 
prietors, two of whom, a brother and sister of Mrs. "Wordsworth, 
are advanced in life, and one has a large family; and both, owing 
to various misfortunes, are in very narrow circumstances. The 
other owner is my only daughter, who is married to a gentleman 
that has been very unfortunate also. I repeat these particulars, 
mentioned, I remember, when I had the pleasure of seeing you 
at Rydal, because I should be very unwilling to give your 
brother and yourself so much trouble upon a slight occasion. 
Nothing remains for the suffering parties but patience and hope ; 
for as to the proposal so kindly made of seeking redress through 
legal process, in which your brother offers his assistance, they 
have h.o funds for acting upon that ; besides, they could not 

VOL \i. 12 



266 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

think of availing themselves of an offer which cou'/i not b€ 
carried into effect, even were it successful, without occupying 
your brother's time and thoughts in a way which they would 
feel unwarrantable. All that you both say respecting the depth 
and extent of the indignation excited in your country by thi? 
shameless dishonesty, we most readily believe ; and upon that 
belief we rest our hopes that justice will be done. But in matters 
like this, time, as in the case of my relatives, is of infinite 
importance, and it is to be feared that the two individuals, for 
whose comfort payment is of the most consequence, may both be 
in their graves before it comes. Let but taxes, to amount how- 
ever small, once be imposed exclusively for discharging these 
obligations, and that measure would be hailed as the dawn of a 
coming day ; but until that is effected, the most sanguine must 
be subject to fits of despondency. 

It gives me much pleasure to learn that you found youi 
jiother and sisters in such good health upon your return. "What 
a joyful meeting must it have been after so long a separation. 
What you say of the nervous fever under which you have been 
suffering gives me great concern. Had it anything to do with 
the climate of your country, very different, perhaps, from what 
you had been accustomed to in Europe ? 

I cannot but wish that you had seen more of the mothef 
country ; it is our old English phrase, and I rather grieve to see 
that many of the present generation, fond of aping German 
modes of thinking and speech, use father-land instead. England 
is certainly the portion of Europe which is the most worthy of 
American regard, provided it be dihgently and carefully noticed 
and studied. 

I send (by way of slight return for your and your brother's 
kindness) to each of you the last verses from my pen. They 
were written about three weeks ago, and a few copies struck off 
for circulation among my friends. I should net like them to be 
printed, even in America, for they would be sure of finding their 
way instantly back to England, before, perhaps, I disposed of my 
own little impression as I could wish. Since the lines were 
composed, I have heard that our Queen and Queen Dowager 



LEGAL VALIDITY OF THE B0ND3. 26T 

have both subscribed pretty largely for the erection of a memo- 
rial to the memory of my heroine upon the spot where she lived 
and was so nobly distinguished. She is since dead. What a 
contrast, as you will see, does her behavior present to the inhu- 
manity with which lately, upon the French coast, certain ship- 
wrecked English crews were treated. 

Mrs. Wordsworth joins me in kind remembrances, and we beg 
that our respects may be presented to your mother and sisters, 
and believe me to remain, 

Sincerely and gratefully, your much obliged, 

Wm. Woedswoeth. 



IToTE. — Since this chapter was written, the question of Repu- 
diation has been finally decided by the highest tribunals of 
Mississippi. These decisions affirm, in the most unqualified 
manner, the legal and constitutional validity of the Union Bank 
Bonds, and the perfect obligation of the State to pay them. The 
matter first came before the Superior Court of Chancery in a 
suit instituted on one of the bonds, and on the 21st February, 
1853, Chancellor Scott delivered an elaborate opinion, asserting 
their validity, and rendering a decree accordingly for the amount 
of the bond sued on and interest. 

From this decree the State's Attorney appealed to the High 
Court of Errors and Appeals, in which Court the cause was 
argued with much ability, on the 16th, 17th, and 18th days of 
May, 1853, by D. C. Glenn, Attorney-General, on the part of 
the State, and by D. W. Adams, Esq., a gentleman whose indefa- 
tigable zeal against Repudiation deserves lasting praise, on the 
part of the appellee. The cause was at length determined on the 
30th day of July, 1853, by a unanimous opinion and decision of 
the Court, affirming the decree of the Chancellor, and holding 
the State liable for the payment of the bonds. See " State of 
Mississippi vs. Hezron A. Johnson, &c. &c. Jackson : Thomas 
Palmer, printer, 1853." 

The opinions of the Chief Justice, Hon. 0. Pinckney Smith, and 



268 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS- 

of the Hon "Wm. Yerger (Hon. E. S. Fisher, the other Judge, con- 
cnrring in them), as also that of Chancellor Scott, are extremely 
able, and reflect lasting honor upon the independence, leaming, 
and high character of the Bench of Mississippi ; any State in the 
Union might well pride herself upon such Judges. All the main 
points taken by Mr. Prentiss in his speeches against Kepudiation 
ten or twelve years before, are here established with a clearness 
and authority beyond cavil. What will be the practical result of 
this decision is not yet plain. It was hailed with profound 
satisfaction all over the Union, as a pledge that the stain of 
Eepudiation would be soon wiped away; the friends of that 
pohcy having uniformly asserted the illegal and unconstitutional 
character of the bonds, and challenged the advocates of their 
payment to test the matter before the judiciary of the State. 
But it is said that in the notable gubernatorial election of 1853, 
which ensued shortly aft^r the adjudication of the cause the 
Repudiation policy was still adhered to, the opinion of the 
Supreme Court denounced, one of the Judges dropped, and the 
candidates of the Anti-bond party triumphantly chosen. It is 
hoped that this was but the impulse of the hour, and that ere 
earnestly to be long the people of Mississippi, uninfluenced by the 
clamor of demagogues, and honoring their own recorded will, as 
constitutionally expressed by their highest tribunals, will cheer- 
fully arrange with their creditors for the payment of both the 
Planter's and the Union Bank Bonds. The authorized agents of 
the holders of the bonds have published to the world that they 
will be satisfied with a levy of an annual tax of one-fourth of 
one per cent, on the value of the real and personal estate now 
subject to taxation in the State, until their debt is paid. On this 
plan, the man who owns one thousand dollars' worth of property 
would be taxed annually the trifling sum of two and a half dol- 
lars for the payment of these bonds ; and the man who owns ten 
thousand dollars of property would be taxed twenty-five, annu- 
ally ; and he who owns one hundred thousand dollars would be 
taxed two hundred and fifty per year ; and so on. 

The following is the pubHcation referred to : 



OFFER OF THE BONDHOLDERS. 269 

Jackson, Miss., Sept. 8, 1858. 

Gbntlembn : — 

Your favor of yesterday is before us, and in reply, we would state, that 
as the attorneys of a majority of the holders of the Miss. Union and Planters' Bank 
Bonds, who, as we believe, also reflect the views of the other holders, we were 
instructed to bring suit against the State, on one of the bonds issued for and on 
account of the Mississippi Union Bank, for the purpose of testing, and having finally 
determined, tiie I'fal liability of the State for the payment of all of said bonds. 
Having brought said suit, in such manner as to accomplish this object, and having 
obtained the decree of the Chancellor, and of the High Court of Errors and Appeals, 
in favor of the holders, settling definitely all questions connected with the liability of 
the State, we, in common with the holders, consider the legal questions as finally de- 
termined, and neither they nor ourselves have ever expected to bring any other suit 
on said bonds, nor shall we do so. As to the Planters' Bank Bonds, neither the 
holders whom we represent, nor ourselves, recognize the existence of any legal 
question, or doubt as to the liability of the State, requiring the decisions of the 
Courts of Justice. 

In reply to your second interrogatory, we would state, that at the time suit was 
instituted, it was the intention of the holders, in the event a decree should be 
obtained in their favor, to apply to the next succeeding Legislature, for an act 
making provision for the payment of the whole debt, in such mode and manner as 
the Legislature might see proper to provide. But owing to the fact that the cause 
was not finally decided until a period too late to have the question fully presented 
to the people of Mississippi, in order that they might give instructions to their 
Representatives free from partisan influence or bias, it is not their intention to 
apply at the next session of the Legislature for the passage of any law making 
unconditional provision for the payment of the whole debt, or for the payment of 
the particular decree rendered. As before stated, the suit was only to settle and 
fix the legal liability of the State, the object being to collect the whole debt, and not 
the particular bond. 

In reply to your third interrogatory, we would state, that the holders of the bonds 
issued for and on account of the Mississippi Union and Planters' Bank, will consent 
to any reasonable time for the payment of these liabilities. They have not 
expected or anticipaied any provision for the immediate payment of the whole 
debt. They have, on the contrary, authorized us to make a proposition to the 
Legislature of the State, which we see no impropriety in making public at this time, 
as It is the desire of the holders to obtain a full and free expression of public 
opinion. 

The proposition they have to make is, that the bonds issued for and on account 
of the Mississippi Union and Planters' Bank, with the interest accrued thereon, shall 
be taken up, and new bonds issued, in their stead ; that the new bonds so to ba 
issued shall be made payable in four equal annual installments of fifteen, thirty, 
forty-five, and sixty years. 

That the bonds so proposed to be issued for the interest now diie, shall bear no 
interest for three years. The principal sum only to bear interest from date at the 
rates already fixed in the face of the bonds. — That after the expiration of three 
years, such portion of the bonds for interest as then remain- due, shall bear interest 
at a hke rate. And as to the amount of tax necessary to liquidate the debt, whilst 
they do not desire to dictate or interfere, yet they are perfectly willing to take a tax 



210 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

of one-fourth of one per cent on the assessed ad-valorem value of such real and 
personal property as is now subject to taxation in the State of Mississippi ; feeling 
confident that it will liquidate the debt before the expiration of the time proposed, 
or if it should not, being willing to grant any further reasonable extension of 

time. 

As this proposition is now made for the first time, and as the holders wish to 
obtain a fair and unbiased expression of public opinion, and instructions by the 
people to the Legislature ; could their wishes be consulted, they would desire that 
the next Legislature should provide by law in such manner as to free the question 
from extraneous or party influences, for a submission of this their proposal to the 
people — feeling assured, that now that all questions of law are settled, the people, 
without distinction of party, wiU accede to so reasonable a proposition ; and give 
the necessary instructions to their representatives to have it accepted and passed 
in the form of a law. 

From a desire to return a prompt answer to your queries, we have not had time 
to write this response with that clearness and precision that we could wish, but 
hoping that we will be understood, 

We remain, very respectfully, 

Adams & Dixon. 
To Messrs. Patrick Henry, 
Grafton Bakkr, 
A. R. Johnston, 
Geo. L. Potter, 
Wm. R. Miles, 
A. G. Mayers. 

This liberal proposition has not yet been accepted ; nor is it 
known that any step has been taken towards executing the decree 
of the Supreme Court. But there is some reason to hope it 
may be done at the next meeting of the Legislature. 



BALiE Peyton's reminiscenoes. 271 



CHAPTER XXI. 

Reminiscences of Mr. Prentiss, by Balie Peyton. 

This seems to be a suitable place for introducing the fol- 
lowing graphic reminiscences, furnished by Col. Balie 
Peyton, late United States Minister to Chili, and now a dis- 
tinguished member of the San Francisco bar. Col. Peyton 
was one of Mr. Prentiss' old and most devoted friends ; nor 
should his name be mentioned in these pages without a 
grateful acknowledgment of the fact. In a letter written 
but a few months before his death, Mr. Prentiss alludes to it 
with much feeling. Referring to a certain matter, which 
had caused him no little trouble, he adds : " The result is 
much more due to Balie Peyton than to me. Peyton was 
very indignant at the manner in which I had been treated, 
and took the thing in hand with such warmth as forced it to 
a conclusion. I shall not soon forget his friendly action '* 

BALIE PEYTON TO THE EDITOR. 

Legation of the United States, i 
Santiago de Cliili, Sept. 25, 1852. f 

My Deae See: — 

* * * Owing to the unexpected departure of 
Lieut. Phelps, who leaves to-morrow, and has been kind enough 
to bear to you these sheets, I am prevented from re-arranging and 
condensing them, as was my intention. With all their imperfec- 
tions on their head, therefore, I send them to you. 

One amongst many incidents, which I would have referred to, 



212 



MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 



if more time liad been allowed, or rather, if I had not been Sw 
mnch occupied in my official duties, on account of the severe 
illness of the Secretary of Legation — was the anxiety manifested 
by Mr. Prentiss, to volunteer for the Mexican war, at the call of 
Gen. Taylor. He consulted me on the subject, and I strongly 
advised against it, considering that his family, business, and other 
causes forbade the step, which I myself found sufficiently embar- 
rassing, when I came to ship off my four motherless children on 
a steamer to Tennessee. 

Wishing you all success in your laudable undertaking, 

I remain, most truly, your friend, 

Balie Peyton. 



It was in the summer of 1835, at Louisville, Kentucky, that I 
first met S. S. Prentiss. In returning with my family from 
"Washington, after the adjournment of Congress, of which I was 
a member, to my farm in Tennessee, I put up at the Gait House. 
Before long, our two eldest children, Emily and Balie, about the 
ages of five and three years, who after the confinement of a 
small steamer, were enjoying their freedom in the corridor, came 
running into the chamber, and exclaiming, " Look ! what a gen- 
tleman has given Balie ! " who had a handsome diamond breast- 
pin in his bosom. Their mother immediately sent them with direc- 
tion to return the pin; but they came back, stating that the gentle- 
man insisted on Balie's keeping it as a present. Shortly there- 
after I received a card, with the compliments of Mr. Prentiss, 
who invited me to his room. I found him surrounded by a party 
of friends, to whom he introduced me, apologizing, at the same 
time, for what he was pleased to term the liberty he had taken, 
in a manner peculiarly bland and courteous. He then begged 
" that I would do him the very great favor to permit the child 
to retain the trifling present he had made him ;" adding, " that 
the httle fellow came to him with the utmost confidence when 
called, told him his name," &c., &c,, and urged his request with 
Bo much earnestness that tliere was no resisting him. His was 
a face that a child would naturally trust at first sight. From 



BALiE Peyton's reminiscences. 2T3 

this accidental meeting, commenced an acquaintance whict 
ripened into a friendship, the cordiality of which was not inter- 
rupted for one moment during his life. The first impression 
■which he made on me, and, as I believe, on every one who 
approached him, was highly favorable, and not to be effaced. 
His stature was rather below than above the medium standard, 
but his chest, neck (which rivalled Byron's), and shoulders, 
were uncommonly full, erect, and well developed, betokening a 
fine constitution, and great strength in the arms. His features, 
taken together, were distinguished for manly beauty, and marked 
by an expression of unmistakable kindness and benevolence. 
The high, intellectual forehead, the mild penetration and poeti- 
cal cast of the eye, and the inflexible resolution, indicated by the 
lines of the mouth, stamped him, to the most casual observer, as 
a man of original genius and commanding qualities. 

I have often heard him repeat an anecdote, which shows how 
far he was from sensitiveness on account of his stature. In the 
journey from Louisville to Harrodsburg, where he went for the 
purpose of appearing in the case of the Wilkinsons, he was 
accompanied by several friends, and stopped for the night at a 
country tavern. The landlady, an energetic and free-spoken 
person, while dishing out the tea and coff'ee, went round the 
table, inquiring : " What will you have, stranger, tea or cofiPee ?" 
" Individual, will you have tea or cofifee ?" And finally, coming 
to Mr. Peentiss, she said : " Little short man, what will you 
have ?" which caused great merriment, no one enjoying it more 
than the little short man himself. 

The first time I heard Mr. Prentiss speak in public, was at 
New Orleans, in the summer of 1839, as well as I remember the 
date, while he was on a visit to that city. In compliance with 
a public invitation, he consented to address the citizens, and with 
a view to the accommodation of the ladies, who expressed great 
desire to hear hitn, the St. Charles Theatre was procured for 
the occasion. The immense building was filled to overflowing 
with the beauty and fashion of the city, while hundreds w^ero 
excluded for want of room. Being one of the committee who 
escorted him on the stage, my heart sunk at the responsibility 

VOL. IJ. 12* 



2t4 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

of his position ; and while the walls shook with the plaudits of 
the dazzling assemblage, I wondered if it were possible for any 
man to come up to the extravagant expectations entertained of 
him by the public. But I was soon relieved of all anxiety on the 
point, and found myself carried away with the rest, as an atom 
of chalf borne along by the resistless tempest of his eloquence. 
He had no subject, no particular theme, no competitor, and yet 
for two hours he enchained and electrified his audience ; not 
only maintaining his high reputation as an orator of the first 
order, but even surpassing the public expectation. No man 
could, at the time, have done justice to this extraordinary eifort, 
and it is not for me, at this remote period, to attempt it. Such 
were the boldness of his flights, and the abundance and bril- 
liancy of his metaphors, original and borrowed from the poets, 
of domestic manufacture and foreign growth, that no stenogra- 
pher could have followed him ; nothing short of electricity, or 
the Daguerrean art, applied to the report of speeches, hot from 
the mouth of the speaker (which I hope to see accomplished by 
some Yankee), could have caught and transmitted that meteoric 
shower of eloquence. 

"A hero of romance in real life," Mr. Peentiss was ever 
inspired by the presence of ladies, and he poured out in profusion 
before them the choicest gems of his exhaustless fancy. "The 
ladies ! God bless them ! " he would exclaim, " in the sincerity 
of my heart I thank them for their presence on tliis occasion. I 
wish I were able to say or conceive something worthy of them ^ 
most gladly would I bind up my brightest and best thoughts 
into bouquets, and throw them at their feet." He went on to 
speak of the heroic courage and devoted patriotism of the sex in 
every great struggle for Liberty. " The ladies of Poland stripped 
the jewels from their delicate fingers and snowy necks, and cast 
them into the famished treasury of their bleeding country. Our 
grandmothers, having no jewels, moulded their pewter spoons 
into bullets, and sent their sons, with Washington, to fight the 
battles of the Revolution." This is but a dim outline, the cold 
skeleton, of some of his concluding remarks, complimentary to 
the female portion of his audience. 



BALiE Peyton's reminiscences. 275 

Such was the effect produced by this wonderful speech, that 
all were desirous of again enjoying a similar treat, and it was 
determined to give him a public dinner, as a well-merited compli- 
ment, and also to afford many who were unable to procure admit- 
tance 10 the St. Charles, an opportunity of hearing him. In the 
course of a few days the affair came off, when he made one of 
the happiest dinner-table speeches I ever heard ; all his exquisite 
imagery and classical figures being entirely new, repeating nothing 
which he had said on the previous occasion. As we entered the 
room, he inquired of me what was expected of him, saying that, 
as he had so recently spoken in the city, he feared it might be 
considered indehcate for him to inflict upon his. friends another 
speech. I assured him he need have no fear on that score, as 
there were many present who had never heard him, and that we 
were all anxious to hear him again. '' Well, then, I must try 
and give them a dish of fresh fish," which he really did, seasoned 
to suit the most fastidious appetite. 

I have seen it represented that he had an impediment in his 
speech, which I consider a mistake. It is true, there was a 
slight lisp, perceptible at the commencement of a speech ; but it 
was by no means disagreeable, and disappeared, or was forgot- 
ten, as he warmed in his subject. I never knew him tx) stammer, 
or hesitate, or to be at a loss for a word, or for the word. He 
possessed a greater flow of language, and was gifted with a 
greater variety of choice flgures and classical quotations, than any 
man I ever heard speak. He would repeat the most intricate pas- 
sages from Milton, Shakspeare, Scott, or Byron, with verbal accu- 
racy and wonderful effect ; while his boldest flights were always 
the most finished and happy. His temperament was essentially 
poetical ; he felt, looked, thought, and spoke poetry ; so that in 
his quotations, which seemed to come unbidden, there was so 
much homogeneousness, such a commingling of electric sparks 
from kindred elements, you could with difficulty distinguish 
what he borrowed from that which was his own ; it was hard 
to separate the warp from the woof, there appearing to be no 
difference in the texture or figure, in the staple or stripe. I have 
heard him in one speech, utter enough of the raw material of 



216 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

poetry to fill a volume ; nor have I any doubt but that, had he 
early and steadfastly courted the Muses, he would have immor- 
talized himself as a poet, and that it might have been said of 
him: 

" His was the hero's soul of fire, 
And his the bard's imnaortal name, 
And his was love, exalted high 
By all the glow of chivahy." 

I have also seen him represented as a man of " fiery tempera- 
ment," whose genius would best ripen under a Southern sun, 
&c., &c., which I look upon as an error, arising from a superfi- 
cial view of his character. He was the very reverse of fiery ^ 
being naturally mild, amiable, gentle, and humane. I never 
knew any man who possessed so good a temper, and such uni- 
formly cheerful spirits. His temperament, as I have said, was 
poetical, not fiery ; his spirit chivalric, but not fierce or sangui 
nary — far, very far from it. His standard of virtue was high, 
and, when aroused, he would lash with a whip of scorpions all 
gross departures from the principles of honor and morality. But 
while he was unsparing of the offence, no man possessed a more 
forgiving or merciful heart towards the offender, when he had 
no longer the power to do mischief. He carried the same views 
with him into politics, being unwilling to admit that a man may 
act on any less elevated principles in public affairs than in pri- 
vate life. Hence he was sometimes considered as acting harshly 
and passionately, when influenced alone by principle, and what 
he deemed a call of duty. 

His self-possession and disinterestedness are strikingly shown 
by an anecdote, which I have often heard, of his second duel 
with Gen. Foote ; and it is so illustrative of the man, that all 
who knew him will agree that if the incident did not occur, it. 
is in perfect keeping with his character. The meeting took 
place on the right bank of the Mississippi River, opposite Yicks- 
burg, and at the first fire Mr. Peextiss' pistol snapped, while 
jGren. Foote missed, shooting over him. This increased the 
eagerness of the large crowd assembled to witness the affair, 
\o such a degree, that they pressed up on each side of the line. 



M 



BALiE Peyton's reminiscences. 211 

until there was left quite a narrow space, scarcely room ejiongh 
for the passage of the balls. After the parties had resumed 
their positions, pistol in hand and triggers set, awaiting, the 
word for a second fire, everything being as still as death, Mr. 
Prentiss observed a little boy, who, anxious to witness " the 
funi^'' was climbing a sapling in his rear, and said to him : " My 
son, you had better take care ; Gen. Foote is shooting rather 
wild." The good humoured tone in which the remark was made^ 
the solicitude it implied for the safety of the child, the coolness 
and forgetfulness of self in a situation so trying, elicited a round 
of applause, which made the forest ring. 

His chivalric spirit adapted itself to the times and country in 
which his lot was cast, not as a matter of choice, but from neces- 
sity. Public opinion had established the wager of battle as the 
only mode of settling points of honor, which no man could 
decline, and maintain his position and usefulness in society. Mr. 
P. and Gen. Foote met and fought, as did Saladin and the Knight 
of the Leopard, by the Diamond of the Desert on the shores of 
the Dead Sea, without retaining the slightest feeling of personal 
malice. Foote supported Prentiss in his election for Congress, 
and Mr. P. ever spoke in the higliest terms of Gen. Foote. 

Mr. Prentiss gave me a most interesting account of his travels 
to the West and South, and of his arrival in Natchez. His face- 
tious ridicule of the cheapness of things at Cincinnati was irre- 
sistibly amusing. 

Encountering, one day, a stout boy, who was staggering under 
an immense basket of peaches, he put a few of them into his 
pockets, and gave the lad two bits (a quarter of a dollar). As 
he walked on, he observed the basket following after, but at first 
supposed it was accidental. At length, however, from the per- 
severing manner in which the youngster kept at his heels, he 
accosted him, saying, " My boy, was it not of you I bought the 
peaches ?" " Yes, sir." " And did I not pay you for them?" 
*' Yes, sir ; and I want to know where to carry them for you." 
All at once the truth flashed upon him, and he found himself 
the owner of a big basket of peaches; which, ho vf ever, he pre- 
vailed on the boy to retain as his individual property. 



278 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

He reached Natchez with but five dollars in his pocket ; and 
having brought letters to a wealthy merchant- of that place, he 
borrowed of him some fifteen dollars, to meet certain necessary 
expenditures, until he should earn the amount, in a situation 
which he had soon obtained with an estimable family in the 
vicinity. From motives of delicacy, he refrained from applying 
to his employers for money until the first quarter's salary was 
due, when he went to the city for the express purpose of repay- 
ing the loan, and returning his thanks for the favor. But when 
he presented himself at his counting-room, the old gentleman 
broke out in a harsh reprimand, and read him a severe lecture 
on the importance of punctuality in such cases, while he opened 
one record book after another, in which stood the name of S. S. 
Prentiss, in capitals, with $15 charged against it, running the 
credit through all the books in which the charge was made. 
He left the house deeply mortified, and retiring to a secluded 
spot near by, he wept scalding and indignant tears. It was only 
a few years after this occurrence, when Mr. Peentiss stood at 
the head of his profession, that the same man counted him down 
a fee of five thousand dollars, for services rendered in a case 
which involved the greater portion of his estate. 

This incident, weighing on a proud and sensitive nature, 
might have had its influence in leading him to take a reso- 
lution which is the key to a career alien, in some respects, 
to his natural disposition. He found himself a penniless 
and friendless youth, in a distant land, with nothing but his 
clear head and stout heart, upon which to rely in the race of life 
opening before him ; and where success was only attainable by 
the exercise of high and heroic qualities. He was to measure 
strength with men who esteemed personal courage, as exhibited 
in personal combat, a necessary, if not the first of virtues ; with- 
out which honesty was insignificant, and talent became degraded. 
He found himself among a people who, from education and other 
causes, looked upon the " Yankee^'' as every New Englander 
was called in the South, as almost of necessity deficient in this 
chief excellence of man — personal courage as proven npon the 
body of some knight of the pistol in the duello. Mr. Pbkntiss, 



MR. Peyton's reminiscences. 2*19 

no doubt, felt this keenly as a disadvantage which was calculated 
to invite aggression ; not only so, but he was of small stature, 
and so lame that, even with the help of a sustaining cane, he 
halted very much in his gait. All things considered, it is not to 
be wondered at that a man of his temperament, of his proud 
spirit and lofty aspirations, should have resolved to accommodate 
himself to the spirit of the times ; for as to remodeling society, 
and changing the tone of public sentiment on this subject, it 
would have been a vain attempt for any one — much more for 
him. So that, from the necessity of the case, he adopted the 
Mississippi code as it then existed, and upheld it in a manner to 
impress himself upon the people no less as a hero than as an 
orator. 

And yet, such was the frankness and generosty of his nature, 
and such the equanimity of his temper, that he met in personal 
combat only one gentleman, Gen. Foote, in a country where 
duels were " as plenty as blackberries." I say that such 
teas the state of things in Mississippi ; but I am happy to be able 
to state that there has been a very great revolution and change 
for the better in that chief source and only remedy of this savage 
custom — public opinion. It is now comparatively rare to hear 
of a duel there. In fact, the same may be said of all the 
Southern and Southwestern States. 

While on this subject, I will relate an anecdote, which I 
received from his own mouth, going to show, that having once 
adopted the Southern code, he maintained it like a true knight, 
without respect to persons, suflfering no man under any circum- 
stances to trample on him. 

While a bachelor at Yicksburg, he invited a select company 
of friends to spend the evening with him at his office. In the 
course of the evening they were intruded upon by a man not 
invited, and who was somewhat intoxicated. Mr. Prentiss 
received him with the utmost courtesy, begged that he would 
call at another time when he would be glad to see him, and 
endeavored, without success, to get rid of him by gentle means. 
But at length, the man becoming abusive and violent, he was 
constrained to eje^t him from his house. At a late hour of the 



280 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

laight, after the corapany dispersed, this person, who had been 
watching the opportunity, entered the office still more enraged 
and intoxicated, breathing vengeance and demanding satisfac* 
tion. Mr. Peentiss, who never lost his temper or compo- 
sure, tried to reason the case with him ; but this only made him 
worse, as he appeared to consider it an additional insult, that he 
should not be recognized on account of being a mechanic. Mr. 
P. assured him, that he had no idea of objecting to him on that 
ground, and promised that if he would go home, sleep on the 
matter, and was of the same mind the next day, when cool, he 
would give him satisfaction. No, nothing would do ; he was 
resolved to have satisfaction on the spot before he slept. Find- 
ing that no other course was left him, Mr. Peentiss called up 
his servant boy Burr, a lad of about fifteen, snoring away in the 
corner, and directed him to bring his pistols, which he loaded 
with great care in the presence of this pertinacious bully, and 
gave him choice. They agreed to fire at the distance of eight 
paces on the corridor in the rear of the office. Burr giving the 
word, by counting one, two, three, four, five ; the firing to take 
place between the words one, and five. Col. Burr ( as he was 
called), having been sufficiently drilled as to his duties, was 
stationed inside of the door, holding a candle so that the light 
fell full on both. The parties took their positions, pistol in 
hand ; Burr was at his post, and about to pronounce the fatal 
"one," when this rude man throwing down his pistol, exclaimed : 

'^ Peentiss, do you think I am such a d d fool as to fight you 

here at this time of night?" It was then about three in the 
morning. The incident afifords evidence, at least, of what Napo- 
leon termed '' three o'clock in the morning courage," and that 
there was nothing aristocratical in Mr. Peentiss' construction 
of the code of honor. 

He was the subject of much obloquy, and newspaper abuse, 
in consequence of advocating the claims of the Choctaw Indians, 
wliich grew out of the treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek.* The 
thing finally arrived at such a pitch that he felt bound to notice 

■ — ■ ■»»■■- ..ii — — ■-■■■■ I ,_ , ■■ — ,■■■■ — —■■■ 11 » 111 ■ ■ »y 

* C included on the 28th of September, 1830. 



COL, Peyton's rkminiscences. 281 

and put a stop to it. On landing at Vicksbiirg, .n November 
of 1843, en route from Tennessee to New Orleans, 1 found Mr. 
Pkentiss and Col. Forrester, an old friend and former colleague 
in Congress from Tennessee, looking out for me. They made 
so strong an appeal, that I was induced to leave the steamer, and 
accompany them to Hillsboro, the county seat of Scott County, 
situated in the interior of Mississippi, where the Board of 
Commissioners appointed by the President to adjudicate these 
claims, was about to meet. 

A few days before my arrival, a most violent and calumnious 
article appeared in a newspaper published at Vicksburg, in 
which the Choctaw claims, then about to be submitted to the 
Board, were denounced as fraudulent, and Col. Forrester and 
Mr. Pkentiss held up in a most odious light before the public* 
The name of the author was demanded, and, after some hesita- 
tion, rather than meet the consequences of a refusal, the editor 
agreed to place in the hands of Mr. Peentiss a sealed package, 
containing full and undeniable evidence of the authorship, to 

be opened at Hillsboro, on condition that Mr. , one of the 

commissioners, should deny himself to be the author of the arti- 
cle. 

This expedition, partaking somewhat of both a civil and mili- 
tary character, afforded the best opportunity I ever had for 
appreciating the personal quaUties, and splendid abilities of Mr. 
Prentiss. Our journey led through Jackson, the capital of the 
State, where I heard him pubUcly denounce Repudiati(m as a 
crime, as an act of moral turpitude, when surrounded by repu- 
diators, who had all " been out," and many of wliom had shot 
their man with perfect impunity ; but those who did not like 
him too well, dreaded him too much to make it a personal matter. 

An early stage of our journey brought us to the town of 
Brandon, rendered famous by the immense quantity of irredeem- 
able paper money issued by a bank located at that place, and 
also by the tragical end of its President, who threw himself into 
Pearl River from the roadside on which we travelled. Here we 



* See Vicksburg Sentinel, November 10, 1843.— Ed. 



282 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

had the curiosity to visit the jail, for the purpose of seeing the 
aperture through which, it was rumored, a dead man had made 
his escape, and which remained unclosed. The truth of the 
story was, that there existed some excitement, and no little com- 
petition, amongst the faculty for the body of a man who was 
hanged ; it had been placed temporarily in jail, for safe keeping, 
and while one party were regaling the jailor, with a view to 
induce him to favor their pretensions, the other made a breach 
in the wall, and bore off the prize. 

After travelling several days over roads almost impassable, 
through a country sparsely settled, chiefly by squatters, we 
arrived at Hillsboro. It was a small village, with the forest-trees 
standing on the public square, and in most of the streets. Here 
and there lay a fallen trunk, cut down for firewood ; the limbs 
being lopped oflp as occasion required. The Court House, Jail, 
and private dwellings were built of trees, the former, and some 
of the latter, having two sides hewn. At this rude place were 
collected an immense number of Choctaw Indians and land- 
speculators. 

The object of Mr. P.''s visit was to expose the Commissioner, 
who had publicly denounced the claims he was about to adjudi- 
cate, drive him from the Board, or induce the other Commis- 
sioners to refuse to sit with him, on the ground that he had 
disqualified himself, both as a judge and as a gentleman, to be 
associated with them in the decision of causes which he had 
prejudged ; and also to demand personal satisfaction for the 
abusive article. 

This journey to Hillsboro, as I have said ; the nature of the 
business which called him there ; the crowd of men, savage, semi- 
savage, civilized, and semi-civilized, amongst whom he wa3 
thrown, and to all of whom he was the chief object of attrac- 
tion ; the philippics he hurled in the face of that Commissioner, 
presented S. S. Peentiss in a greater variety of scenes, and in a 
more interesting point of view than I ever saw him, or any 
other man. 

We arrived a day or two before the Board was convened for 
the transaction of business, and put up with an unlettered but 



COL. Peyton's reminiscences. 283 

Hell-meaning old gentleman, who filled a variety ot public ofla- 
ces; being the town "squire," jailor, and tavern-keeper; in 
which last vocation he had many competitors. He gave us the 
particulars of the trial and execution, at that place, a short time 
before, of two men who were charged with, and doubtless guilty 
of, atrociously murdering a man on the highway for his money. 
They broke jail once or twice, and went to Texas: but had been 
brought back and recommitted to prison, where they were guarded 
by volunteer companies of citizens, who stood sentinel around the 
jail day and night until the Court convened. The accused, how- 
ever, contrived to have their causes continued until the next 
term, with a view, as it was believed, to tire out the people, and 
again make their escape. Whereupon, after the adjournment of 
Court, a call was issued for the assembling of all the voters of 
the county at Hillsboro. On the first trial before this popular 
jury, a majority of fifteen were against hanging, but the " Squire " 
said it was believed that illegal votes had been cast by non-resi- 
dents of the county ; another meeting was, therefore, called, at 
which the two men were condemned by a considerable majority, 
and accordingly hanged. 

Wlien not otherwise employed, we amused ourselves in shoot- 
ing squirrels, which proved to be no small accession to our 
limited bill-of-fare. A broiled grey squirrel is quite a delicacy 
when properly cooked, and this Mr. Prentiss superintended in 
person, calling loudly for butter with which to dress them. 

He was formally introduced to the chief, " Captain Post Oak," 
a perfect model of the natural man, six feet six or eight inches in 
height; he joined, too, in the sports of the Indians — among other 
things, shooting blow-guns, at which he soon became so expert 
that he beat the best of them. A blow-gun is formed of a reed, 
or cane, from twelve to fifteen feet in length, bored through, so 
as to admit the passage of a light arrow, which is ejected by the 
breath ; hence the name. With this i^^eapou the Indians are 
able to bring down birds and squirrels from the trees. 

In passing thejail one day we caught the glimpse of a prisoner 

confined in the dungeon, or lower story. He beckoned us tc 

. the grates, and then, through his livid lips and ciiattering teeth^ 



284 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS, 

for it was frosty ISTovember weather, poured forth a touching 
appeal for protection ; strongly protesting his innocence, and 
declaring his ignorance of the charge against him. Additional 
interest was imparted to the situation of this man, on account of 
the fate of the two who had been sO recently elected to the gal- 
lows by a public meeting of the sovereigns. Repairing forth 
with to the tavern, we inquired of our landlord as to the charge 
against him, and requested, as his counsel, to see the mitti7nus 
upon which he was committed. The " Squire " appeared to be 
somewhat embarrassed, and at length acknowledged that there 
had been no regular commitment, nor even any specific charge 
against him ; but said the fellow was a doubtful character, and 
Lad been imprisoned on suspicion. " On suspicion of what ?" 
asked Mr. Prentiss. " Has aq^body been killed, or robbed, or 
lost a horse, a hog, or a cow?" "No, no," said the Squire, 
" nothing of that sort has happened, but then he is a kind of 
surplus character, circulating about, and not very agre'ble at 
that." 

Mr. Prentiss declared that he should be set free ; and that if 
the Squire refused to turn him out, he should be discharged on 
habeas corpus, if he had to go to Jackson himself for the writ, 
and sue every man concerned in his detention for false imprison- 
ment. This startled the Squire, who had never seen nor had he 
any definite idea of a writ of habeas corpus ; and entertaining a 
respect mingled with awe for Mr. Prentiss, he consented to dis- 
charge the prisoner. Unfortunately, however, his son, who had 
that morning ridden twelve miles into the country in quest of 
Dutter wherewith to dress our squirrels, had carried the key of the 
jail with him ; so that it could not be opened until he came back. 
Meanwhile Mr. Prentiss, whose whole heart was now in the 
matter, and who felt like an ancient knight bent upon the rescue 
of an unfortunate captive from some feudal castle, returned to 
console the prisoner with the prospect of his early liberation. He, 
poor fellow, stood shivering with sunken eyes and hollowed 
cheeks, looking the picture of despair. Mr. Prentiss inquired if 
he did not think a little brandy would help him ! " Mightily ! 
but there is no chance to get it in to me." Mr. P., however, set 



BALiE Peyton's reminiscences. 285 

lirs fertile ingenuity to work, and succeeded, by introducing a 
blow-gun through the grates, one end of whicli tlie prisoner put 
to his mouth, while the brandy was poured into the other. 

Finally, the young man having returned with the ke}-, he waj 
brought to the tavern, ate a hearty meal, received a handsome 
purse, sufficient to supply his immediate wants, and went on 
his way rejoicing; looking upon his liberation as next to a 
miracle, and the generous man who accomplished it as his good 
angel. 

There was to me something inexpressibly interesting in this 
scene, as the poor fellow gazed in the face of his deliverer, and 
hung around him, as though he felt secure in his newly regained 
freedom only in the presence of Mr. Peentiss. It called to 
mind the touching picture of Uncle Toby at the bedside of 
Lefevre, and the effect produced by his honest, benevolent face 
in winning the heart of the little son of the dying officer, who 
was unconsciously drawn to his side, and took hold of his hand. 
All that Sterne said of his hero, and more, might, without exag- 
geration, be said of Mr. Peextiss. "There was a frankness in 
him which let you at once into his soul and showed you the 
goodness of his nature. There was something in his look, and 
voice, and manner, which internally beckoned to the unfortu- 
nate, inviting them to come and take shelter under him." He 
was, indeed, a man whom, at first sight, the lowest would trust, 
the distressed appeal to, and the brave confide in. 

But to return to our business at Hillsboro'. When the Board 
met, in a log cabin, the scene was picturesque in the extreme. 
There were the three Commissioners — Mr. Graves, Mr. Tyler (a 

brother of the President of the United States), and Mr. , 

with their clerk, seated on one side of a table made of pine- 
boards ; on the other sat the counsel of the Indians, while the 
building was filled to overflowing with their clients, hundreds of 
whom, unable to find room inside, were crowded around the 
house, with their swarthy faces and dark eyes, peering through 
the apertures between the logs. 

Mr. Peentiss rose to a preliminary question ; and handing a 
newspaper, containing the offensive article, to Mr. , inquired 



286 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

whether he was or was not its author ; to which he rephed, with 
some hesitation and evident embarrassment, in the negative. 
"Whereupon Mr. Prentiss drew from his pocket and broke the 
seal of an envelope, containing the papers which had been placed 
in his liands by tlie editor of the Viclcsburg Sentinel. They 
proved to be tlie original manuscript from which the article was 

published, in the handwriting of Mr. , and also his letter to 

the editor, which accompanied the same. In this letter he 
boldly assumed whatever responsibility might attach to him as 
author of the article, and in advance tendered personal satisfac- 
tion to the party aggrieved.* As these documents were pro- 
duced, and the truth flashed upon him, the Commissioner made 
a lame effort to qualify his denial by saying, " I was the writer, 
but not the author, of the article, having copied it for a 
friend." 

Mr. Prentiss proceeded to read the letter and manuscript 
article, in the latter of which "one Forrester," and certain 
"influential men" acting with him, were denounced in unmea- 
sured terms, the claims they advocated condemned as " the most 
stupendous fraud ever devised," and the whole thing represented 
as a deeply-laid plot to swindle the United States and the good 
peo-ple of Mississippi. The Commissioner was eulogized as if he 
were the only man in th<3 Commission who possessed the talents, 
honesty, independence, and patriotism to throw himself in the 
breach, and resist the peculators.f 

After reading these documents, which he did with marked 



* " If Mr. Forrester calls, inform him that I will shoulder the responsibility, and 
hold myself personally responsible to him." 

t The following is an extract from the article : " We say ta [the Commis- 
sioner], your position is the very one that a bold, resolute, and ambitious man 
would wish to occupy. You stand alone. * * * it is believed you are 
the only obstacle to the consummation of this tremendous fraud. You have baffled 
them [the speculators] heretofore; by your acknowledged resources and energies, 
unequal as is the struggle of one against a host, you may defeat them. Be the 
result what it may, your position is a proud one. The community all see that a 
league of men, banded for plunder, are striking at one man. Be firm. If you shrink, 
you fall with dishonor. If you sustain your ground, as we believe you will, you 
cover yourself with honor. We look to the issue with great interest. Your friend i 
will stake their lives upon your firmness." 



MR. PEYTuX'S REMINISCENCES. 281 

deliberation and emphasis, Mr. Prentiss commenced the most 
extraordinary effort of vindictive eloquence I ever heard, and, I 
doubt not, one of the most remarkable ever uttered by any 
man. 

When, having finished the reading, he threw down the papers 
and stood drawn up to his full height, his noble front erect, capa- 
cious chest distended, as though it were too narrow to contain the 
spirit which stirred within him, his face beaming, coruscating, 
his flashing eye fixed upon the unfortunate Commissioner, it 
seemed to me that he was a grand subject for a painter, or 
sculptor, worthy of the task. 

Before he uttered one word, his work was accomplished ; the 
man was gone, the judge was the convicted culprit. Indeed, 
during the two hours in which he poured out that torrent of 
eloquence, I do not believe the effect produced at any moment, 
exceeded that which was imparted by his face before he opened 
his mouth to speak. I never before comprehended the force of 
an expression, used by some writer, D'Israeli, I believe, in 
describing Voltaire, that he possessed in a remarkable degree, 
"physiognomical eloquence." But to the speech and its effects! 
If the philippic of Cicero, which drove Cataline from Rome, was 
more terrible, wiiich I doubt, it is not to be wondered at that 
the traitor left the city. 

On this occasion Mr. Prentiss, with an oppressed nation as 
his clients, had a noble theme for oratory, scarcely inferior in 
interest and variety to that of Sheridan in the trial of Hastings : 

" When the loud cry of trampled Himlostan 
Arose to Heaven in her appeal from man, 
His was the thunder, his the avenging rod, 
The wrath — the delegated voice of God ! 
Which shook the nations through his lips — and blazed 
Till vanquish'd Senates trembled as they praised." 

He gave a most interesting history of the Choctaws as a 
nation, of their pacific cliaracter, and uniform friendship for the 
people of the United States; dwelling with great effect upon 
the oppression and injustice which they had already experienced. 
He described what a judge should be, investing him with almost 



288 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

divine attiibiites of virtue and wisdom and justice; and then con-, 
trasted sucii a pure and elevated character with the prejudiced 
partisan and unprincipled demagogue who, acting in the name, and 
clothed with the power of his Government, was about to crush the 
last hope of an injured people, and filch from them the mite which 
that Government, in the exercise of its resistless power, had seen 
fit to grant them. In alluding to the wrongs which the Choc- 
taws had experienced in return for their good conduct, he melted 
the hearts of all — Indians and white men — and drew tears from 
eyes before which death had no terrors ; groans and sobs burst 
from stoic bosoms, and cheeks were wet which had seldom or 
never been profaned by a tear. 

The Board adjourned to consider the motion to expel Mr. 

, and at its next sitting he read a protest against the power 

of his colleagues to deprive him of a commission he received 
from the President of the United States ; which was the occa- 
sion of such another speech from Mr. Prentiss as I have just 
described. But the other Commissioners refused to sit with 
him, referred the question to Washington for the decision of 
the President, and adjourned sme die. 

The personal satisfaction, w^hich had been tendered in advance 

by Mr. , was refused ; and having thus retreated beyond the 

pale of honor, he was dropped. The President afterwards 
removed him. 

1 was particularly struck with Mr. Prentiss' cheerfulness and 
elasticity of spirits, which never flagged for an instant during 
the whole time. 

Of his readiness at an impromptu speech, in which he sur- 
passed all men of my acquaintance, and I am inclined to believe 
never had a superior, I will give an instance, related to me by a 
person who was present on the occasion. In the autumn of 
1841, I think it was, he joined a hunting party, with which 
he spent a week or two under a tent in the forests of the Sun 
Flower, a small river tributary to the Mississippi, in the vicinity 
of Vicksburg. Towering above the tent stood one of those 
remarkable elevations, evidently the work of art, which abound 
in the Mississippi valley, and are commonly called Indian 



MR. Peyton's reminiscences. 289 

mounds ; although the Indians have no tradition of their origin, 
and are as ignorant of the race by whom they were constructed, 
as the geologist or antiquary. 

One day Mr. Peentiss, with the aid of the vines and over- 
hanging boughs, made his way to the top of the mound, where 
his friends, who were collected around the tent, discovering him, 
united in the call for a speech— a speech from Peentiss ! 
" Upon what subject ?" " Upon the subject on which you now 
stand." He at once set off in a playful sally for the amusement 
of himself and friends, but warming in the subject as he pro- 
ceeded, his creative imagination soon peopled the forest with 
that lost tribe, that mysterious race, who, ages past, inhabited 
the country before the birth of the aboriginal trees that stand 
upon these huge piles, and bespeak their previous existence. He 
introduced every variety of character, kings, princes, courtiers, 
warriors ; marshalled armies and fought battles, going on thus 
for more than an hour, in a vein of philosopical reflection and 
poetical invention, which imparted a thrilling, almost a real 
interest to the imaginary scene. The gentleman from whom I 
had this incident was a man of cultivated taste, had often 
heard Mr. Peentiss at the bar, and on the hustings, and consid- 
■ ered this as one of his happiest efforts. How completely he came 
up to Shakspeare's description of the poet, as he stood impro- 
vising from that Indian mound in the wilds of the Sun Flower I 

" The poet's eye in a fine frenzy rolling, 
Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven, 
And as imagination bodies forth 
The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen 
Turns them to shape, and gives to airy nothing 
A local habitation and a name." 

In almost every county of Mississippi, there linger some such 
traditional recollections of his wonderful powers as an orator. 
He posses.-ed the rare faculty of impressing his elevated views 
and noble sentiments upon the hearts of all classes of men, of 
striking out the latent spark which abides in the uncultivated 
mind, of making such men cry out : "That's just what I've 
always thought ! " He never flattered the people, or attempted 

YOL. II. 13 



290 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

to stir up one class of the community against another ; but strove 
rather to excite a spirit of pride and emulation, which was cal- 
culated to elevate the masses to the condition of the more fortu- 
nate, by fair and honorable competition. 

Mr. Prentiss was a profound lawyer. It was, indeed, diflScult 
to determine whether he was more able in an argument before 
the Supreme Court, or captivating in an address before a popu- 
lar assembly. In his management of causes, and intercourse witli 
members of the bar and bench, he was a model of fairness and 
gentlemanly manners. His conversational powers were equal to 
his eloquence in debate ; he possessed in an extraordinary degree, 
the wit, humor, and flowing courtesy so fascinating in social 
intercourse. Of all the men I ever met, he was best entitled to 
the compliment which Byron paid to Sheridan : 



Prom the charm'd council to the festive board, 
Of human feelings the unbounded lord. 
* ♦ * * 

And here, oh ! here, where, yet all young and warm 
The gay creations of his spirit charm. 
The matchless dialogue — the deathless wit, 
Which knew not what it was to intermit. 



But in his case, the " high spirit" never " forgot to soar." On 
the contrary, no man ever left a purer fame, or a name more 
unsullied, than did S. S. Prentiss, in all that constitutes high 
honor and spotless integrity of character ; for, although for many 
years he was surrounded by the severest trials and temptations 
to which, in the ordinary course of things, human virtue can be 
subjected, his principles remained as pure, and his heart con- 
tinued as warm and fresh, as the instant he bid farewell to his 
mother, and took leave of the parental roof. 

It is not surprising that he was a great popular favorite, for he 
was an extraordinary man in every sense ; in his genius, his 
acquirements, his eloquence, his courage, which belonged to the 
age of chivalry, his unaffected goodness of heart, and integrity 
of character ; but he was even more 'beloved than admired by his 
intimate acquaintance. The frankness, warmth, and cordiality 



M«. peyton'3 reminiscences. SOI 

of his manners, his patient forbearance and sweetness of temper, 
united with boundless generosity, combined to make him the 
most agreeable and reliable of friends, and the best of husbands 
and fathers. 



293 



MEMOIR OF S. S PRENTISSL 



CHAPTER XXII. 



Recollection of him in 1843-4 — Speeches at a Whig Convention at New Orleans- 
Visits the North — Political Addresses during his Journey — The Presidential Elec- 
tion of 1844 — Subject-matter of Mr. Prentiss' Addresses — Return South, and 
Speech at New Orleans on the Fine Arts — Letters — Invitations to attend Whig 
Conventions and Barbacues in other States — Visit to Nashville — Letter from 
Ex-Governor Jones — Speeches at Natchez, Jackson, and Vickaburg — Disappoint- 
ment at the Result of the Election. 

^T. 35. 1844. 



There was, in some respects, a striking contrast between 
Mr. Prentiss in 1837 and in 1843-4. Marriage had wrought 
a most salutary change in his manner of life,*as well as in 
his feelings. However it might before have been, industry 
and hard work were now his daily habit. He was, in every 
sense, a man of business, rarely allowing himself even a day's 
recreation. He rose early ; and on coming down to break- 
fast, I almost invariably found him at his desk, engaged 
in reading, study, or correspondence. In the bosom of his 
family, he was one of the happiest of men. Nothing could 
exceed the sweetness of his temper, his affectionate devotion 
to his wife and child, or the bounteous warmth of his hospi- 
tality. He kept open house, and it were hard to say which 
was greatest, his delight in the visits of his friends, or their 
admiration for the beauty of his domestic life. His home 
was, indeed, just what might have been anticipated from 
the preceding letters to his mother and sisters. 



RECOLLECTION OF HIM IN 1844. 293 

Here is an extract from his New Year's letter to his 
mother : 

Belmont, Dec. 81, 1843. 

My Deae Mothee : — 

I am compelled to leave home to-day, to be absent 
for one or two weeks on business ; but I cannot go away with- 
out first telling you how much we all love you, and how much 
we think of you. To-day is the last of the year, and to-morrow 
morning, if we could only be at Portland, you would receive a 
kiss and a Happy New Year from me, and from Mary, George, 
and dear little Jeanie. As we cannot give the kisses, we can 
at least send you the wishes ; and a happy ^ happy New Year do 
we all wish you, my dearest mother, and none more fervently 
than I. How much I would give to be with you, to talk over 
the changes which have happened and are to happen in the 
family. And so dear A. is married, and settled down as a 
clergyman's wife ! It seems so strange, when we expected her 
to spend the winter here. But much as we regret the loss of 
her society, both Mary and I are delighted at the match. I doubt 
not she will be happy herself, and as the Lady of the Paris\ 
cause much happiness to those around her. You must miss her 
very much ; still it is a comfort to have her so near. We have 
had our friends up from Natchez, spending Christmas with us. 
They went home day before yesterday. Her grandmamma, 
Mrs. Williams, thinks there is no such child living as Jeanie. 
We all think she is going to look more like you than any one 
else. Mary sees a strong resemblance to your portrait, and 
G. and I recognize your features in her continually. She is 
a sweet, dear, good little girl, and you would be proud of her, if 

you could see her. Edward P is here on a visit. We are 

all much pleased with him. Give my love to Aunt D., Uncle 
James, and Oapt. D.'s family. 

On the 22d of February, 1844, the anniversary of 

Washington's birthday, a grand Whig Mass Convention 

- was holden at New Orleans. Great preparations had been 



294 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

made for the day, and a large number of distinguished 
citizens had been invited from neighboring States. The 
presence in New Orleans of Mr. Clay, the Whig candidate 
for the Presidency, added much to the general interest of 
the occasion. The immense concourse, after marching 
through the city with gorgeous banners, and at the sound 
of stirring music, assembled on the Place d 'Armes, where 
the scene was imposing in the extreme. It was said to be 
the largest popular assemblage that had ever met in 
Louisiana. The opening address was made by Mr. Prentiss. 
His trip to New Orleans, and the speech itself, are thus 
referred to by Mr. Thorpe in his Reminiscences : 

Peentiss had originally a constitution of iron ; his frame was 
so perfect in its organization, that, in spite of the most extraor- 
dinary negligence of health, his muscles had all the compactness, 
glossiness, and distinctiveness of one who had been specially trained 
by diet and exercise. It was this constitution that enabled him 
to accomplish so much in so short a time. He could almost 
■wholly discard sleep for weeks, with apparent impunity ; he 
could eat or starve ; do anything that would kill ordinary men, 
yet never feel a twinge of pain. I saw him once amidst a tre- 
mendous political excitement ; he had been talking, arguing, 
dining, visiting, and travelling, without rest, for three whole 
days. His companions would steal away at times to sleep, but 
Peentiss was like an ever-busy spirit, here, and there, and every- 
where. The morning of the fourth day came, and he was to 
appear before an audience familiar with his fame, and critical in 
the last degree. He desired to succeed, for more was depending 
than he had ever before had cause to stake upon such an occasion. 
Many felt a fear that he would be unprepared. I mingled in the 
expecting crowd; I saw ladies who had never honored the 
stump with their presence struggling for seats; counsellors, 
statesmen, and professional men, the elite of a great city, were 
gathered together. An hour before I had seen Peentiss, still 
apparently ignorant of his engagement. 



INCIDENT AT NEW ORLEANS. 295 

The time of trial came ; and the remarkable man presented 
himself, the very picture of buoyant health, of unbroken rest. 
AU this had been done hy the unyielding resolve of his will. Hia 
triumph was complete ; high wrought expectations were more 
than realized, prejudice was demolished, professional jealousy 
silenced, and he descended from the rostrum, freely accorded his 
proper place among the orators and statesmen of the land. 

This speech excited such admiration that he found it 
impossible to leave the city without again addressing the 
people. His second speech was delivered in the Arcade, and 
was even more applauded than the first. The audience con- 
tained a large number of ladies, whose enthusiasm was roused 
to the highest pitch by the gay and beautiful compliments 
he showered upon them. The French, or Creole, portion of 
his auditors were especially captivated by his style of 
speaking. 

On the 23d, the Convention reassembled on the Place 
d^Armes, and, forming a procession, marched to the St= 
Charles, to pay their respects to Mr. Clay, who was on the 
point of setting out on his journey North. Towards noon 
it reached that once magnificent structure. Here occurred 
a characteristic incident, which is thus related by Mr. 
Thorpe : 

The streets presented a vast ocean of heads, and every build- 
ing commanding a view was literally covered with human 
beings. The great Statesman of the West presented himself to 
the multitude between the tall columns of the finest portico in the 
world. The scene was beyond description, and of vast interest. 
As the crowd swayed too and fro, a universal shout was raised 
for Mr. Clay to speak ; he uttered a sentence or two, waved his 
hand in adieu, and escaped amidst the prevailing confusion. 
Peentiss, meanwhile, evidently unconscious of being himself 
noticed, was at a side window, gazing upon what was passing 
with all the delight of the humblest spectator. Suddenly, his 
name was announced. He attempted to withdraw from publio 



296 MEMOIR OF S. S. PREXTI3S. 

gaze, D.iS friends pushed him forward. Again his name "was 
shouted, hats and caps were thrown in the air, and he was finally 
compelled to show himself on the portico. "With remarkable 
delicacy, he chose a less prominent place than that previously 
occupied by !Mr. Clay, although perfectly visible. He thanked 
his friends for their kindness by repeated bows, and by such 
smiles as he alone could give. '' A speech ! a speech!" thun- 
dered a thousand voices. He lifted his hand ; in an instant 
everything was still — then pointing to the group that surrounded 
Mr. Clay, he said, " Fellow citizens, when the eagle is soaring in 
the sky, the owls and the bats retire to their holes." And long 
before the shout that followed this remark had ceased, Prextiss 
had disappeared amid the multitude.* 

Soon after his return from Xew Orleans, professional 
business called him to Washiu2:ton Citv. The following: is 
a specimen of his letters to his wife during the journey : 

MosTGOMEHT, (Ala.) March 16, 1S44. 
10 o'clock at night. 

My Deaeest Wefe : — 

I left New Orleans on Wednesday last, about mid- 
day, arrived at Mobile on -Thursday morning, and in the evening 
took a boat to this place. I was waited on in Mobile before 
I had been there five minutes, with an invitation to make a 
speech. I declined, however, as I did not feel very well — but 
dined with the Mayor of the city at his invitation. I arrived 
here this evening at four o'clock — when I was forthwith called 
npon by another committee to make them a speech. I begged 
ofi', and was about going up to my room to write you a letter, 
and then take a little sleep, as the cars leave here at one to-night. 

* " I was with Mr. Prentiss in New Orleans, in 1S44, at the time of Mr. Clay's 
visit, and when on being called for to address the crowd after the old Whig chief- 
tain had sjwken, he was dragged forward by friends, and made the apt and 
unanswerable reply mentioned by Mr. Thorpe In the Amencan Retiew. The lan- 
guage is that exactly, almost verbatim, which Mr. PEEXTiiS used on that memorable 
occasion. I never saw him before when he was really embarrassed, but then his voice 
actually trembled from confusion, and his cheek and L'ps blenched with pallor. He 
afterwards expressed to me somewhat of indignation that any crowd would call on 
another after Henry Oay had jost stirred them with one of his sweeping harangue^ 
Short as his speech had been that d.a.j."— Letter from Col. Jos. B. Cci/h. 



LETTERS. 29t 

The committee just then returned, and informed me that a large 
crowd had assembled, among whom were many ladies, in expec- 
tation of hearing me, and that I must not disappoint them. 
With my usual good nature, I consented to their wishes, and have 
just returned fr^m making a longspeech to five hundred people. 
They appeared much gratified, but I am tired to death of it, and 
trust I shall be able to escape such annoyances in future. Since 
our marriage, my own dear Mary, I have abandoned all political 
ambition, and nothing but a sense of duty could induce me to 
take any part in politics. All my hopes and wishes are centered 
in home, and the dear friends who are connected with it. Oh ! 
how homesick I do feel. I would let one of my fingers be cut 
off for the pleasure of seeing you and Jeanie, though only for 
five minutes. I think I never knew how much I loved you, till 
this long separation. I am sick and melancholy to think of the 
period which must intervene before my return. But there is 
one comfort, at least, in thinking how joyful will be that return. 
"With what a throbbing and happy heart I shall clasp you and 
dear little Jeanie, once more, to my breast. How often I shall 
kiss you, and thank Heaven for the blessing it has afforded, in 
permitting me to do so. Dear^ dear Mary — siceet, sweety Jeanie 
— ^wife and daughter — your husband and father, though far away, 
is now thinking of you — and invoking, with tears in his eyes, all 
good angels to guard and protect you. 

I go from here about forty miles on railroad — then take stage 
one hundred and fifty miles — then railroad to Charleston, I 
have, fortunately, a travelling companion, Col. R., of Jackson ; 
he dined with us when Mr. Clay was at Vicksburg. This will 
make it more pleasant than if alone. 

But it is now 10^ o'clock, and I shall be awakened at 12^, so 
I must lie down and take a little rest ; it is all I will get to-night. 
I trust our dear mother is with you, and also Miss Eliza; to both 
of whom present my kind remembrances. To you and Jeanie, 
what can I say? Only that I lov^e you — love you better than 
all the world besides. Good night, love, good night. 

Ever your affectionate and devoted husband, 

S. S. Pke^^tiss. 
VOL. n. 13* 



298 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

From Wasbington he proceeded to New York, from 
whence he wrote : 

I arrived here yesterday, and find I cannot resist my incli>' 
nation to pay a flying visit to Portland, though it will take time, 
which I can but ill spare. I shall leave for Boston on Tues- 
day evening, April 2d, and remain there one day, on business. 
Thursday morning, I shall go down to TsTewburyport, dine with 
Anna, and bring her to Portland with me on the same evening. 
Yesterday I got a letter from Mary, informing me of the well- 
being of herself and dear little Jeanie. I will not write more, 
as I shall so soon be able to talk with you. My heart already 
beats with pleasure at the thought of seeing you all so soon. 
God bless you all. 

On reaching Boston, he was immediately waited upon by 
a committee of one of the Clay Clubs, w^ith the request that 
he would address the Whigs of the city in the evening. 
Before the hour of meeting, the large hall of the Odeon 
was filled to overflowing — floor, boxes, and orchestra — by 
an audience composed, in great measure, of the intellectual 
elite of Boston and Cambridge. He began by remarking, 
sportively, that he " was not willing to say he had ' fallen 
among thieves,' but he was quite sure he had come in con- 
tact with highwaymen ; for, as he was passing quietly through 
the city, on his private business, they had intercepted him, 
and compelled him to stand and delivery 

The following extract from a letter of the corresponding 
secretary, enclosing the thanks of the Clay Club for his 
address, will indicate its spirit : 

In conveying to you the sentiments of our Club, I beg to 
assure you that I do not feel I am discharging a mere formal 
duty. To any one, indeed, who had addressed us upon such an 
occasion, we should have presented our thanks y but you, sir, 



SPEECH IN BOSTON, 299 

have known how to break through and penetrate the cokl exte- 
rior, which, as you so happily observe, conceals Northern hearts, 
that yet beat as warmly and responsively to the calls of patriot- 
ism as those in the sunnier climes of the South. We feel that 
our thanks and gratitude are more especially due to you, because, 
in a time marked by far too nmch of popular sycophancy, you 
have boldly dared, as a public man, to expose and lay bare the 
moral gangrene that is fast eating into the vitals of our glorious 
Eepublic. In doing this, you have ventured to beard that 
" shadowy monster " so often and so unjustly invoked by our 
political opponents, as the " Voice of the People" — showing 
what daring encroachments upon the Constitution, and dearest 
rights of the People, have been perpetrated through the agency 
of this bugbear. You have done more ; you have demonstrated, 
that only through the aclcnowledged forms of the Constitution 
can the will, or voice of the people, have any valid effect ; and 
that no number of citizens, however large, can rightfully alter, 
or abrogate, any part of our State or National Constitutions, or 
the laws made under them, save through the forms and modes 
prescribed in the same. Such noble and manly sentiments as 
these demand our admiration, and we cannot but feel that, with 
your powerful advocacy, we have a new guarantee for the pre- 
servation of social order, of law, and well-regulated liberty. 

While stopping for a few hours in Kewburyport, although 
it was the annual Fast-day, he was waited upon by a com- 
mittee, with an urgent invitation to address his Whig breth- 
ren there. He reached Portland late in the evening, and 
early the next morning was called away from the table by a 
committee, charged with a similar request. He tried hard to 
beg off, pleading the shortness of his visit home, and utter 
exhaustion from his long journey. But it was all in vain. 
On returning to the breakfast-room, he remarked, playfully, 
but with a care-worn look : " They seem to think it as easy 
for me to make speeches as it is for a juggler to pull ribands 
out of his mouth." 



300 MEMOIR OF S. S. PEENTISS. 

The Portland audience, like that at Boston,was remarkabla 
for its intelligence and weight of character. His address, 
though not wanting in fine rhetorical passages, was chiefly 
distinguished for its high moral tone, the elaborate skill with 
which it exposed certain popular fallacies respecting Liberty, 
and its hearty denunciation of demagogues, both Whig and 
Democratic. It was thus noticed at the time, by the accom- 
plished scholar who then edited the Portland Advertiser ;* 

The citizens of his native town gave Mr. Peentiss, last even- 
ing, a most hearty and enthusiastic welcome. 

The large hall of the Exchange was filled at an early hour, by 
a crowded audience, assembled on the invitation of the Clay 
Club to hear this gifted orator. The recollection of his admira- 
ble addresses among us in 1837 and 1840, united with the 
patriotic impulses of the present eventful year, raised the antici- 
pation of a rich and animated entertainment. Nor was there any 
disappointment, as the spontaneous and unanimous applause of 
the audience testified again and again. 

In fact, all expectations were more than fulfilled ; for in addi- 
tion to a most brilliant eloquence and fervid appeals to the pas- 
sions of his auditory, Mr. Peentiss enchained the understanding 
of all his hearers, by his profuond investigation of the first princi- 
ples of government, and by the rapid and severe logic of his 
argument upon the tendencies of the clashing political doctrines 
of the day. It has never been our fortune to hear, in a popular 
speech, a more convincing exhibition of truth, well reasoned out, 
and more happily presented with the best attractions of eloquence. 

Mr. Prentiss took a large and most accurate view of the 
opposing political parties of the present time, designating them 
as the defitructive and the conservative. He did not rest his argu- 
ment, however, in any manner, upon the application of names 
and epithets, but carefully traced the results and tendencies of 
the principle, or assumption of principle, which the destructive 
party has advocated and still professes. Beyond the expectation, 

* yhineas Baroes, Esq. 



SPEECH AT LOUISVILLE. 301 

certainly, of some, "svho had not known tbe extraordinary versa- 
tility of Mr. Pkentisb' powers, and the accuracy of his reflection 
and his logic, he proved himself to be, not only a most impas- 
sioned orator, but a profound political philosopher. 

"We have little time to say anything further, but we cannot 
refrain from referring to the admirable matter and manner of 
the closing parts of Mr, Peextiss' address. His finely-wrought 
eulogy of Mr, Clay, the vivid description of the existing political 
contest, and of the triumphs that are to be won by the Whigs, 
and the handsome and patriotic appeal to the ladies who were 
present, excited an irrepressible enthusiasm and delight. 

On his return home, he also addressed an immense popu- 
lar assemblage, in the open air, at Philadelphia, and another 
at Louisville, Ky. His speech at the latter place was thus 
noticed by George D. Prentice, Esq., the well known and 
able editor of the Louisville Journal : 

The Hon. S. S. Peentiss, of Mississippi, arrived in our city 
yesterday, and, although worn down with the fatigue of a long 
and tiresome journey, he yielded to the wishes of the pubHc that 
he should address them. The intelligence that he would speak 
at 8 o'clock, flew through the city, and, at the appointed hour, 
there was assembled the largest collection of people that we have 
ever seen in- this city on any similar occasion. Men of both the 
great poHtical parties — old men, whose venerable forms are 
rarely seen in public assemblies, were there, in such numbers as 
to crowd the room to overflowing. So great was the anxiety to 
see and hear this gifted and wonderful man. He spoke more 
than two hours ; and when we say that his speech was the most 
profound and logical argument to which it has ever been our for- 
tune to listen — clothed in the purest and most classic language and 
imagery — and glowing with the fire of true genius, animated by 
the loftiest patriotism — we have given but a beggarly descrip- 
tion. It was a speech that will long live in the memory of all 
who heard it ; and if Mr. Peextiss had never before said or 
done anything worthy of notice — had never stood up as the 



302 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS 

colossal denouncer of Repudiation — liad never before dropped 
manna from bis lips — tbis splendid effort alone would place bim 
among tbe men of tbe first talents of the age. He uttered great 
trutbs, sucb as public men too often timidly forbear to speak 
npon. We sball bave occasion again to recur to tbis speech ; 
in tbe meantime, in tbe name of tbe "Whigs of tbe city, we tender 
to tbe orator thanks for tbe instruction and debgbt whicb be 
afforded us. 

It may not here be out of place to mention more particu- 
larly some of those " great trutbs," referred to in tbe above 
extract, and wbicb formed the staple of all Mr. Prentiss^ 
political addresses in 1844. 

His speeches, during that year, were unquestionably the 
greatest he ever made. Perhaps they were not more bril- 
liant than those of 1840 ; but they were more grave and 
replete with deeper political wisdom. They related not so 
much to mere questions of public policy, as to those great 
ethical and social principles, which are at once tbe foundation 
and the informing soul of a Christian Republic. " What," 
he exclaimed in his speech at Portland, '* what are mere 
political measures, what are the questions of tarifi", bank, or 
internal improvements, in comparison with tbe question of 
our immediate honor, character, and perpetuity as a vir- 
tuous, law-abiding nation ?" In 1840, tbe Upas tree of Repu- 
diation was just in bud ; in 1844, it had already oversha- 
dowed a whole State, and infected the financial atmosphere 
of several others with its poisonous influence. In 1840, the 
Dorr Rebellion, in Rhode Island, had not broken out ; 
in 1844, it had effloresced and disappeared.* These 

* The reader will find an account of the so-call«d Dorr liebellion, and of the doc- 
trines advocated by its leader and his followers, in Daniel Webster's Argument 
made in the Supreme Court of the United States, on the 27th of January, 1848, in 
the case of Martin Luther against Luther M. Borden and others. (See Webster's 
Works^ vol. vi., p. 217, et seq.) It is a masterly exposition of the true principles of 
government in our American system of public liberty. Here are a few sentencea 



HIS SPEECHES IN 1844. 303 

events were novel in the history of the United States, and 
both showed, though in a different way, into what depths 
of folly, madness and dishonor, nnprincipled politicians, 



from the introduction of the argument: "There is something novel and extraordi- 
nary in the case now before the court. It is well known, that in the years 1841 
and 1842, political agitation existed in Rhode Island. Some of the citizens of that 
State undertook to form a new constitution of government, beginning their proceed- 
ings towards that end, by meetings of the people, held without authority of law, 
and conducting those proceedings through such forms as led them, in 1842, to say 
that they had established a new constitution and form of government, and placed 
Mr. Thomas W. Dorr at its head. The previously existing, and then existing, gov- 
ernment of Rhode Island treated these proceedings as nugatoi-y, so ar as they went 
to establish a new constitution ; and criminal, so far as they proposed to confer 
authority upon any persons to interfere with the acts of the existing government, 
or to exercise powers of legislation, or administration of the laws. All will remem- 
ber that the state of things approached, if not actual conflict between men in arras, 
at least the ' perilous edge of battle.' Arms were resorted to, force was used, and 
greater force threatened. In June, 1842, this agitation subsided. The new gov- 
ernment, as it called itself, disappeared from the scene of action." Mr. Dorr was 
afterwards indicted for treason, and tried by a jury, before the Supreme Court of 
Rhode Island, in 1844. He was convicted of treason, and sentenced to imprison- 
ment for life. Some time before his death, the remainder of his punishment was 
remitted, and he was set free by act of the legislature of the State. 

Few events have so tested the character, or vindicated the strength, of our 
system of popular government as this Dorr Rebellion. For a time it attracted not 
a little sympathy thoughout the country. Influential journals and distinguished 
politicians lent it their countenance and support. At great political meetings in 
other States, resolutions were passed, endorsing the rebellion, and complimenting 
" Governor Dorr " in the highest terms. The ground taken by its advocates, is 
excellently described by Mr. Webster in his argument before the Supreme Court: 
" It is alleged that Mr. Dorr, instead of being a traitor o-r insurrectionist, was the 
real governor of the State at the time ; that the force used by him was exercised in 
defence; of the constitution and laws, and not against them ; that he who opposed 
the constituted authorities was not Mr. Dorr, but Governor King ; and that it was 
he who should have been iij^icted, tried, and sentenced. This is rather an impor- 
tant mistake, to be sure, if it be a mistake. ' Change places,' cries poor Lear, 
^ change places, and handy -dandy, which is the justice and which is the thief?' 
So our learned opponents say, ' Change places, and handy-dandy, which is the 
governor and which the rebel ?' " "I believe," Mr. Webster remarks inclosing, 
" that no hai-m can come of the Rhode Island agitation in 1841, but rather good. 
It will purify the political atmosphere of some of its noxious mists, and I hoi)e it 
will clear men's minds from unfounded notions and dangerous delusions." 

The opinion of the Supreme Court, sustaining Mr. AVebster's legal positions, 
(Mr. Justice Woodbury dissenting) was delivered by Chief Justice Taney, and will ba 
found in Howard's Reports of the Supreme Court of the U. S., vol. vii. p. 1, et tieq. 

Two propositions from tlie argument of the counsel for the plaintilTs in error, in 



304 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

armed with a few plausible sophisms and seizing upon the 
balance of party power, may seduce large masses, or even a 
majority, of the people. They made manifest, not the 
weakness of our Republican lustitutions, but the source 
of their peril. Patriotic and thoughtful men were impressed 
by them with the importance of more diligently instilling 
right views of law into the popular mind, and disenchanting 
it of the dangerous fallacy, that Government is a mere 
creature and slave of the will of a majority. 

The following are some of the main points in Mr. Prentiss' 
speeches in 1844. The first, and that which he enforced, 
perhaps, with most earnestness, was the moral and constitu- 
tional limitations of the popular sovereignty. The incessant 
and idolatrous adulations offered to the people by the 
demagogues of the stump and pen, he regarded not only 
with disgust but as fraught, with unspeakable mischief ; and 
he thought that even many right-minded politicians were 
infected with grievous error on this subject. The people, 
although the source of power, are yet as truly under restraint 
as the individual ; they are bound and fenced in by their own 
constitutions, by the laws, and by the sacred immutable 
principles of honor and duty. This he declared to be the 
peculiar strength and glory of our Republican Institutions, 
that, in establishing them, the people of these United States 
had, by free and solemn covenant, bound both themselves 
and their posterity for ever, to walk in the paths of order, 
union, and public justice. They had voluntarily subjected 
themselves to the authority of a permanent National 
Government, and in the exercise of its legitimate prescribed 



this case, will indicate the general ground assumed by Mr. Doit and his party : " The 
sovereignty of the People is supreme, and may act in forming governments without 
the assent of the existing government." Again : " Even when a subsisting consti- 
tution points out a particular mode of change, the People are not bound to folio;* 
the mode so pointed out ; but may, at their pleasure, adopt another." 



HIS SPEECHES IN 1844. 306 

functions this authority is over them, and entitled to their 
loyal support and obedience. They stand to it, individually, 
not in the relation of sovereigns, but of free citizen-subjects. 
Their duties are as inviolable as their rights ; their will can 
act rightfully only in accordance with the constitution and 
laws of the land ; all action contrary to these is licentious 
and revolutionary. Even the whole American People, in 
their majestic national unity, are hedged in by the divinity 
of a Higher Power.* That the people — above all, that 
a mere majority of them — have the right to do what they 
please ; that their naked will is superior to law, or that it 
can change at all the intrinsic moral character of an action 
— all this he denounced as the very madness of political 
error. The sovereignty of the people no more gives them 
unlimited freedom than the personal liberty, or self-govern- 
ment, of the individual empowers him to steal and commit 
murder. 

Another great truth, closely allied to the foregoing, and 
which he often dwelt upon, was the moral and practical 
limitation of real freedom itself. All genuine popular liberty, 
he contended, involves, among the very conditions of its 
existence, restraint and self-denial ; in other words, is impos- 
sible without order, moderation, sacrifice, obedience, and a 



♦ The fine lines of George Withers, the old Puritan poet, are quite as applicable 
to Congress and the Sovereign People as to King and Parliament; 

"Let not your King and Parliament in one, 
Much less apart, mistake themselves for that 
Which is most worthy to be thought upon : 
Nor think they are, essentially, the State. 
Let them not fancy, that th' authority 
And privileges upon them bestown, 
Conferr'd are to set up a majesty, 
A power, or a glory, of their own ! 
But let them know, 'twas for a deeper life, 
Which they but represent, 
That there's on earth a yet auguster thing, 
Veil'd though it be, than Parliament and King.'* 



306 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

spirit of compromise. The instant you begin to embody the 
idea of liberty in free permanent institutions, you find that 
it is a principle eminently practical, comprehensive, and 
severe in operation ; its conditions are many and stringent ; 
it is not a hundredth part as simple and pliable as despotism. 
Being the highest and most diversified state of the individual 
and social man, it demands the highest elements of character 
— intelligence, virtue, industry, courage, honor, and self- 
control. True liberty, therefore, can no more be given to 
a people than general virtue or wisdom ; it must be won 
by hard toil and discipline, and it must be maintained by 
constant vigilance. A government, whatever its name, is 
usually little more than a reflection of the character of a 
nation. Hence, we often find a people with nominally free 
institutions, actually living under an anarchical despotism. 
They may call themselves free, without being so, just as a 
man may call himself rich, while, in fact, a miserable bank- 
rupt ; or honest, and yet be steeped in fraud. Mr. Prentiss 
made hardly a speech in 1844, in which he did not take 
occasion to express these sentiments, and to impress them 
upon the popular mind with all the force of logic, and with 
the happiest illustrations. Liberty unrestricted and un- 
qualified by written, or unwritten constitutions, laws, cus- 
toms, and moral order, he affirmed to be a dream of political 
visionaries. Our American system of Liberty is no such 
dream, but a grand historic Institution ; striking its roots 
deep into the soil of the Past, essentially practical in its 
character, and having the source of its strength, progress, 
and perpetuity, not in any mere abstract theory of human 
rights, but rather in the sound political sense, civic habits, 
patriotism, and law-abiding instincts of the people. 

Another point which he used to enforce, is the tendency 
of a free government to produce — not, as many suppose, 
an absolute equality, but the greatest possible inequality of 



SUBJECT-MATTER OF HIS SPEECHES IN 1844. 30*1 

Jiaman condition. In his speech at Portland, he unfolded 
*>nis somewhat paradoxical proposition, with exquisite skill 
ind beauty. So far as Republican Institutions aim to give 
ill so all men an equality of rights, they do indeed put all 

ipon a level. But then they aim, also, to give to every 
4ian, whatever his position originally, an open field ; and 
\Q encourage every man in gaining, keeping, and enjoy- 
ing as high a degree of eminence, in all respects, as 
Dy the powers with which God and nature have en- 
dowed him, fairly and fully exerted, he is capable of 
attaining. This, of course, as men are constituted, must 
produce the greatest possible variety of conditions. The 
noblest unity involves the most and richest diversities. 
What endless inequality marks the beauteous order, har- 
mony, and free life of Nature I The azure space is open 
to all birds alike ; but the owl cannot match the lofty flight 
of the eagle ; nor the humble sparrow soar and sing as the 
lark. The best and freest form of society is that in which 
the talents of each individual, whether public or private, 
find the amplest scope, and are unfolded with the greatest 
ease. 

Another point was the real unity and interdependence of 
the different classes and interests of society. This topic, 
however, entered into almost all his addresses in 1840. 

Soon after his return from the North, business called him 
to New Orleans. While there, a public meeting of the citi- 
zens was held, with a view to raise funds for procuring a 
statue of Franklin, by the eminent American artist, Hiram 
Powers : 

An address on the subject (writes Col. Peyton), was to be 
delivered by that accornplished gentleman and ripe scholar, the 
late Richard Henry Wilde, who justly merited, and will continue 
to enjoy, a national reputation as a profound jurist and enlight- 
ened statesman, as well as a man of cultivated taste and poetical 



308 MEilOIR OF S. S. PREXTISS. 

genius. Mr. Prentiss, who chanced to be in the city, was taking 
an after dinner nap, when some friends entered his room at the 
St. Charles, and aroused him, saying, " Come, Prentiss, let us 
go and hear Wilde make his speech on the Fine Arts; every- 
body will be there." " Agreed," said he; "I should like to hear 
what can be said on that subject." 

Mr. "Wilde came prepared elaborately, and delivered an exceed- 
ingly able and appropriate written address, every line of which 
bore the impress of taste and genius ; but, as is often the case in 
prepared speeches, it lost something of its interest and real merit 
in the delivery. A group of gentlemen, who were collected near 
the door, withdrew before the conclusion, and were regaling 
themselves, hard by, at the bar of the St. Charles, when sud- 
denly the church resounded with a burst of applause. " Wilde 
is warming up ! " some one remarked ; another and another 
demonstration followed in quick succession, each more earnest 
than the other. "Ji must he Prentiss; let us goP'' was the 
exclamation; and sure enough, they found him in the midst of 
one of those almost inspired and rapturous bursts of eloquence, 
which seemed to come over him involuntarily, and which trans- 
ported the enlightened audience. 

Several spirited notices of this impromptu address 
appeared at the time; or since, of which the following is the 
pith : 

It was a happy thought, which suggested the meeting at Mr, 
Clapp's church, on Tuesday evening. Eichard H. Wilde, Esq., 
made an admirable address. He entered into an argument to 
refute the sneering objection sometimes made to the culturv3 of 
the fine arts, tliat they are effeminating, luxurious, and mark the 
decline of virtue, courage, and popular liberty. He passed in 
rapid review those golden periods of Art, which have, from time 
to time, marked the history of every free and prosperous nation 
of the civilized world. He pointed to the career of Michael 
Angelo, and dwelt most felicitously upon those commanding 
traits of his character, which formed in him the bright and 



SPEECH ON THE FINE ARTS. 309 

unique combination of statesman, soldier, poet, painter, architect, 
and sculptor. lie dwelt upon the American associations with 
the name of Benjamin Franklin. He then imparted a peculiar 
interest to the character and genius of our countryman, Powers, 
by relating what the Italians — those who professed the same art, 
and ranked first in their own land — what Thorwaldsen, the great 
Danish sculptor, had said of this youthful foreigner, who had 
come among them unfriended by the patronage of princes, and 
unsustained by the voice of fame. 

Excellent speeches were made also by Judge McCaleb and Mr. 
Eustis. But S. S. Pkentiss actually spoke diamonds and rubies, 
like one inspired. He is, indeed, an orator, between whom and 
the best of his contemporaries we have ever heard here, there is 
a hiatus xalde deflendus — a tremendous abyss. No sooner was 
it noised through the assembly, at the close of Mr. Wilde's 
address, that he was in the church, than a simultaneous, loud, 
and irresistible call was made for him. It would be folly for us 
to attempt to pursue the orator in the progress of his glowing 
and resistless eloquence, or to seek to portray its effect upon 
the souls of his listeners. As it were by a common impulse, the 
audience seemed to rise up and draw nearer to him. Those who 
were contained in pews, leaned forward, eagerly awaiting each 
thought as it came forth in royal apparel from his richly stored 
and wonderful mind. 

We noticed among the fairer portion of the audience, some 
whose countenances were lighted up with the very spirit of the 
orator ; the reflection, as it were, of his own soul. Thus, for 
nearly an hour, did Mr. Prentiss enchain the ear of every list- 
ener, and almost hold the breath suspended on every lip. As he 
warmed with his theme, he developed the grand idea of the 
Genius of Civilization hovering over our land, scattering the 
seeds of knowledge, founding the halls of science and the galle- 
ries of art. He dwelt especially upon the nature and power 
of sculpture, showing how the hallowed veneration of the 
patriot is kindled by the ideal presence of the illustrious 
dead, whose statues^ he said, would be as national and house- 
ho-d gods, to keep alive the spirit of patriotism, and appal. 



310 MEMOIR OF S. S. PREXTISS. 

by their aspect of intellectual majesty, the enemy of fi-eedom 
and virtue. 

He drew a gorgeous picture of Napoleon crossing the Alps, 
and while he trampled under foot the political rights of the 
Italians, pausing, awe-struck, in presence of their masterpieces 
of art. So graphic was his tongue, that you seemed to see the 
modern Alexander, with his steel-clad warriors, threading the 
snows of Mount St. Bernard, gazing from its dizzy height upon 
the sunny plains of Italy, and then, like the eagle, that hastes to 
his prey, rushing down to seize upon the spoils of Art. And 
here he enumerated some of the most celebrated remains of 
ancient sculpture, individualizing each by a few masterly touches, 
and with a splendor of diction which would have done honor to 
Burke, when dwelHng upon the Sublime and Beautiful. His 
description, indeed, was the very thing itself — the idea of the 
sculptor embodied in words instead of marble. There stood, dis- 
tinct almost as if actually present to the eye, the Goddess, sprung 
from Ocean^s foam, the same smile upon her lips, untrem- 
bling before the god of War. There reclined the dying Gladiator, 
with no consciousness in his death agony, save the memory of 
his far-distant wife and little ones, upon the banks of his native 
stream. There, too, is seen the god of the Golden Bow, his 
eye still flashes, his lip glows, his nostril is dilated, as he follows 
the course of the shaft which transfixes the heart of the 
Python. 

Winkelman himself could not have exhibited a greater enthu- 
siasm for this noble art. But what most astonished his auditors, 
especially those among them who had a professional acquaint- 
ance with the subject, was the minute and technical accuracy 
of his description. Had he been bred to the easel, or wrouglit 
from his youth in marble, he could hardly have seemed more 
familiar with the details of the studio. But all this, with Mr. Pekn- 
Tiss, was intuition. We believe that the whole was the sponta- 
neous thought of the moment; the rude outlines that floated 
through his mind, being fllled up by the instinctive teaching of 
his surpassing genius. 

In conclusion, Mr. P. spoke of the feehngs of pride with which 



SPEECH ON THE FIXE ARTS. 311 

he should visit the galleries of arr, collectecl by the wealth and 
taste of our citizens, and he could not doubt that specimens 
of art would soon abound, where he now beheld so many lovely 
specimens of nature. 

There is, undoubtedly, one error in this account ; an error 
constantly fallen into by those who were not intimately 
acquainted with Mr. Prentiss' habits of mind. The speech 
in Mr. Clapp's church was regarded by all who heard it as 
a miracle of eloquence, and whatever is said of its beauty, 
power, grandeur of conception, and wonderful effect upon 
the audience, may readily be credited. But no man learns 
facts, or is able to give an accurate description of pictures 
and statues, by mere intuition ; this is a task beyond the 
faculty even of creative genius. The artistic allusions in 
this speech can be better explained on the simple theory of 
quick observation, a fine memory, and glowing imagination. 
The truth is, Mr. P. had read much on the subject of art, 
and was by no means unacquainted with such specimens of 
sculpture and painting as our own country affords. He was 
particularly fond of good engravings. During his visit to 
Portland, a few months before his address at New Orleans, 
I found him alone, one afternoon, poring, in apparently 
deep study and meditation, over the plates appended 
to a German edition of the works ofWinkelman. Whether 
he was musing upon the political address he was to make 
that evening, or upon the beautiful figures before him, I 
could not tell ; but in .either case, he looked, as I recall his 
attitude and expression, a perfect picture of pensive, con- 
templative abstraction. Upon my entering the room, a con- 
versation arose upon the subject of art, and we examined 
together several of the engravings lying before him — among 
others, the very ones referred to by him in his Fraukliu 
address. 



312 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

Here follow some of his letters, written after his return 
from the North : 

TO HIS TOITNGEST BROTHER. 

Belmont, May 19, 1844. 

Dear George : — 

I have heen so much engaged since my return, 
that I have not ahsolutely had time to write. As soon as I got 
back, I went to I^ew Orleans ; from thence to Jackson to attend 
court, and from Jackson to Jefferson County, on the same busi- 
ness. From the latter place I returned day before yesterday. 
Altogether, I have not been at home a week. You may judge 
how much I am fatigued and annoyed, at such continued labor 
and absence. Indeed, I am quite worn out, and would give 
anytliing to spend a month or two in perfect seclusion. I hope 
by the middle of June, I shall be able to leave my business for 
a while ; if so, I shall take Mary and Jeanie and spend a few 
weeks at Panola. I need rest and relaxation, both physical 
and mental. I found Jeanie wonderfully improved ; you would 
scarcely know her. She is all the time running about, and 
chattering like a little magpie. Mary is pretty well, but her 
health is delicate. I have made no progress in the settlement 
of my affairs, and very much fear that I shall not be able to 
extricate myself from my embarrassments. I have almost 
fully determined to wind up here during the next year, and 
then go to New Orleans to live. I think I should succeed in 
my profession there; and I am utterly disgusted with tkis 
State, especially this portion of it. Vicksburg is becoming every 
day more vulgar and despicable. I suppose you have seen in 
tlie newspapers, an account of the quarrels and bloodshed, 
which have occurred recently. While I was in New Orleans, 
the Sentinel came out with one of its usual blackguard articles, 

abusing myself and Major M . Mr. Downs believing Mr. 

R had something to do with it, called him to account. 

They had a duel, and Mr. Downs * was slightly wounded. The 

* This young gentleman, whose ardent devotion to Mr. Prentiss may be inferred 
from the above incident, fell a prey to the cholera, in the spring of 1849. He was 



LETTERS. 313 

next day, Doctor M undertook to chastise the editor of 

the Sentinel for some remarks in his paper of that morning. 

In the scuffle Doctor M was killed. All this was during 

my absence. On ray return, I found Mr. Downs had acted 
rashly in the matter, though from generous motives. The arti- 
cle was editorial, and there was no proof that it was written by 

Mr. R . I did not think there was sufficient ground to 

authorize me to call him to account ; and as for. the editor, I 
would not touch him with a pair of tongs. He is a more mis- 
erable and degraded wretch than they have ever had before, 
and no gentleman would think for a moment of noticing him. 
I do not, therefore, apprehend any further difficulty, and I shall 
certainly keep clear of anything of the sort, as far as practicable. 
There is nothing new here. Mary and Jeanie join me in much 
love to you all. 

TO THE SAME. 

Panola, La. Jvly 8, 1844. 
Mt Dear Brother: — 

I have been very remiss in my correspondence ; 
but Mary, I believe, has fully supplied my place. The courts 
are now over, and I hope to have a few weeks, leisure. I came 
down here three days ago ; Mary and Jeanie three weeks before. 
You may imagine how much I was gratified in rejoining them. 
We shall stay here about two weeks longer, and then return to 
Belmont. I find all very well, but a good deal distressed on 
account of the high water, which is likely to destroy all the 
crops in this vicinity, Mrs. Williams' and Mc.'s among the rest. 
Jeanie is excellently well, and full of all sorts of monkey tricks. 
Her mother and grandmamma say she is the smartest child 
living; but that is probably exaggeration. I was much cha- 
grined at hearing of the annoyance and pain you all suffered 
from those vile newspaper reports. If I had, for a moment, 
imagined that such false accounts would obtain, I should have 



on his way from Washington City to New Orleans, and one of his last acts was to 
request that a lock of his hair might be transmitted to Mr. P. as a token of his 
dying remembrance. — Ed. 

VOL. n. 14 



314 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS 

written sooner; bnt I could not anticipate such falsehoods.* 
But it is all over now, and there is no probability that you will 
be again troubled in a similar manner. I shall not be ever 
easily drawn into a difficulty, nor do I believe that any one 
really desires to get into one with me. Mr. Downs, though from 
the kindest motives, acted very foolishly, and took up in my 
absence, an attack in the Sentinel^ which 1 should not, for an 
instant, have thought of noticing. I shall always remember his 
friendly motive, and feel much gratified at his speedy recovery. 
He received only a flesh wound, and is now entirely well. If 
I had been at home, nothing would have happened. But 
enough of this poor business. 

We are delighted to hear that you are licensed. I congratu- 
late you most sincerely, my dear brother, on your entry upon 
the duties of your high profession. The calling which aims at 
the moral improvement of the human race, is undoubtedly far 
beyond that which has in view only the amelioration of its 
physical condition ; and knowing, as I do, the purity and sin- 
cerity of your motives, I do not doubt that you will accompHsh 
great good in your vocation. Mary joins me in love to all, and 
Jeanie sends a handful of kisses. 



TOTHESAME. 

ViCKSBCBG, Aug. 9, 1844. 
Dear George : — 

I have just received your two letters of the 23d 
and 25th ult. and am gratified to hear that you are all well, and 
that you are in such excellent spirits. I would give a great deal to 
spend the summer with you, and enjoy the cool sea breezes and 
fine fishing excursions, for which Portland is, in my opinion, 
unequalled. We have here the hottest season I ever witnessed. 
So far it has been pretty healthy, but I apprehend a good deal 
of sickness when the river falls. As yet it is at its full height, 
with no signs of receding. I wrote last, I believe, from Panola 



* The report was that he had fallen in a duel.— Ed. 



LETTERS. 315 

We returned to Jielraont several weeks ago, and since then I 
have been to New Orleans. Half my time, for the last six 
weeks, has been employed iu answering invitations to political 
meetings; not only in this region, but throughout the Union. 
I have been solicited to attend 'barbecues^ mass-meetings^ convene 
tions^ &c. &c., in Louisiana, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, 
Pennsylvania, Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, 
and I know not how many more States. I have declined them 
all, save one. I have determined to go to Nashville, where a 
great convention is to be held on the 21st. I shall start in two 
or three days, and return immediately after the convention. It 
will be a very brilliant affair. Crittenden will be there, and 
probably Leigh, Preston, Rives, and others, of equally imposing 
names. I was invited by some 500 ladies, as well as by the 
regular committee ; nevertheless, I should not go, but for some 
important business I have at Nashville. Mary urges me strongly 
to go, and as the trip may result in much . advantage to my 
affairs, I feel it my duty to do so. It will afford me a good oppor- 
tunity of testing myself against the " big guns." I will not fail 
to give you an account of the affair. On one account, I am glad 
that I am going : I shall be able to set myself right in relation to the 
reports which have circulated about my change. I should have 
noticed them before I did, but for my repugnance to coming out 
in the newspapers ; it looks so egotistical. But I could not 
stand the idea of deserting Clay, to join Polk.* "We are deter- 

* The following is the card referred to : 

" To the Editor of the ' Vicksburg Whig: 

" Dear Sir :— 

" I have, with surprise and mortification, seen it reported in several 
public prints, that I had withdrawn from the support of Mr. Clay, on account of his 
course in relation to the Annexation of Texas. It is not with a view of obtruding my 
humble opinion upon the public, nor for the fashionable purpose of defining my 
position on the Texas question, that I ask the favor of a very small space in your 
columns ; but for the purpose of relieving myself from the obloquy of the report 
alluded to, and of asserting that it is unfounded and untrue in every particular. 

" I look upon the Whig cause as far more important than the Texas question, and 
would rather see that cause triumphant, and Mr. Clay elected, than to witness the 
annexation to the United States of all the territory between here and Patagonia. 



816 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

mined to have Abby with ns, and will take no excuse ; so tell 
her to prepare to spend the winter South. Mary is writing her 
about it to-day, and I will write her presently. Mother must 
spare her, for we want her much ; you must come too, if possible. 
Mary is as well as could be expected. Jeanie is a little fountain, 
of health and brightness. Both of them join me in affectionate 
regards to all. 

» 

Besides the invitation from five hundred ladies of Nashville, 
referred to in the preceding letter, he received similar invi- 
tations from Louisiana, and from different parts of Mississippi. 
This is a thing almost without precedent in our political 
history. But an extraordinary interest was felt in Mr. 
Prentiss by his fair countrywomen of the Southwest. His 
eloquence had an irresistible charm to their ear. This, added 
to the strong admiration which many of them cherished for 
Mr. Clay, explains a step so unusual. If it were proper to 
publish these invitations from the ladies of Tennessee, Louisi- 



I believe the question of Annexation, as now presented, to be a mere party ques- 
tion, brought forward expressly to operate on the Presidential election, and that it 
ought not to have the slightest influence upon the course, or action, of any member 
of the Whig party. Indeed, the ground taken upon it in this qwarter, that those 
who support Mr. Clay are unfavorable to Southern institutions, and opposed to 
Southern interests, is as insulting as it is false, and should arouse an honest indig- 
nation in the breast of every true Whig. 

" I am proud of the Whig party and its noble leader ; they are worthy of each 
other, and of the glorious triumph that awaits them both. I would rather vote for 
Henry Clay for President than for any man now living, and most assuredly shall I 
do so in November next, unless, in the meantime, he turns Locofoco ; and, but for 
the pressure of my private business, I would not hesitate to devote the time between 
now and the election in persuading others to do likewise. I have not deserted the 
Whig cause in the time of its adversity, and certainly shall not do so upon the evQ 
of victory. 

" In conclusion, I will say, if ever I join the Mormons, I shall attach myself to 
Joe Smith, the founder of the sect, and not to one of his rival disciples. And 
should I ever turn Locofoco on the question of the immediate annexation of Texaa, 
I will support John Tyler, not James K. Polk. 

'• Very respectfully, 

« S. S. P » 



INVITATIONS TO WHIG CONVENTIONS. 311 

ana and Mississippi, with the names attached, they would 
form a most graceful testimonial to Mr. Prentiss' character 
and eloquence. A brief extract from one or two of them 
will show their spirit : 

Need we apologize for our course in assuming to ourselves the 
honor of extending to you this invitation. We cannot think we 
are overstepping the bounds laid down for us even by the most 
fastidious. For if we, the daughters of America, are not inte- 
rested in the welfare of our beloved country, who, we ask, can 
be ? Could you be sensible of the interest and anxiety with 
which we shall watch the arrival of your answer, and how many 
happy hearts and faces would be in readiness to await your 
coming, your response would be, / will come ! A letter of 
acceptance from you, we have no doubt, would draw together a 
greater number of persons than one from any other gentleman in 
the Union — that of our beloved Clay only excepted. So, we all 
say. Come! 

/ 

Another letter says : 

We must beg leave to protest against the conduct of the com- 
mittee of gentlemen, in leaving unrepresented, in their invitation, 
the claims and wishes of that portion of our community which 
your sex, we believe, has long since agreed to acknowledge as 
the better part — conduct which imposes upon us the necessity of 
speaking in our own behalf. The ladies of this place generally 
are most anxious to testify their respect for the character, 
ability, and valuable public services of the favorite and most 
distinguished son of Mississippi. 

The following letters addressed to the Gentlemen and 
Ladies of Holly Springs, Mi., may serve as specimens of 
scores written by him in the course of the summer ; 



318 MEMOIR OP S. S. PRENTISS. 



YiccSBUBG, Jvly 20, 1844. 

Gentlemen : — 

On account of absence from home, I have but just 
now received your favor of the 20th ult., inviting me, on behalf 
of the Whigs of Marshall County, to attend a " mass meeting of 
the Whigs of Mississippi, and adjoining States," to be held at 
Holly Springs, on the 7th August next. I lack terms in which 
to express my grateful acknowledgments for the flattering 
manner in which you have communicated to me the wishes 
of my Whig friends in Marshall. Were it possible for me to do 
so, I should not for a moment hesitate in complying with theii 
request. Such, however, is the condition of my private busi- 
ness, that I am compelled, for the present, wholly to forego the 
pleasure of participating in the movements of our friends in 
different quarters of the country. Sorely against my inclination, 
I am forced, by personal considerations of an imperative charac- 
ter, to decline all political invitations. I should be glad to make 
an exception in the present instance, but it is out of my power. 

I trust it is unnecessary for me to say, that this conclusion 
has not resulted from an^^ diminution of my zeal in the Whig 
cause, but from pure necessity. I have never felt deeper interest 
in our cause, nor greater confidence in its success. All the omens 
are auspicious. Victory already perches upon our banner ; and 
I do not doubt that a triumph, more signal and glorious even 
than that of 1840, will crown our exertions. I feel, with you. 
no ordinary solicitude that Mississippi may be found in the ranks 
of honor and patriotism. By casting her vote for our noble and 
gallant " Harry of the West," she will emerge at once from the 
filthy pool of Locofocoism in which she has been so long plung- 
ing — and clad in clean Whig garments, slie will soon forget the 
Btained and dishonored rags which the dominant party has for 
years compelled her to wear. 

* it. 4e <^ ic 4e 4e 

Permit me again to express my deep regret that I cannot be 



LETTER TO THE LADIES OF HOLLY SPRINGS. 319 

with you in person, as I shall be in heart and feeling ; and my 
most grateful thanks for the flattering terms of your communi- 
cation. 

With sincere respect, 

Your obhged friend, 

and obd't servant, 

S. S. Peentiss. 



8. S. PRENTISS TO THE LADIES OF HOLLY SPRINGS. 

ViCKSBURQ, Jvly 22, 1844. 

Most Kespeoted Ladies : — 

"With sentiments of profound gratitude, I beg leave 
to acknowledge the receipt of your favor of the 15th instant, 
inviting me to attend a Whig Mass Meeting, to be held at Holly 
Springs, on the 7th of August next. It will be vain for me to 
attempt an expression of the grateful emotions which have been 
aroused in my heart by this distinguished mark of the condescen- 
sion and kindness of the fair Whigs of Marshall. It was with no 
ordinary regret that I found myself under the necessity of declin- 
ing the invitation of my Whig brethren, my friends and comrades 
in the great and glorious cause which has so long united our 
hearts, and tasked our exertions. Far greater, however, is my 
chagrin and mortification at being compelled to say " nay" to 
your most flattering and honored request. I trust you wUl 
be assured that nothing but rude and imperative necessity could, 
for a single instant, prevent me from complying with your 
slightest wish. 

It will be to me a most serious misfortune to be absent, on an 
occasion when the gallant Whigs of North Mississippi shall 
assemble in council, and their patriotic deliberations be rendered 
holy by the cheering sympathies of the daughters of the land ; 
whose bright smiles will sustain man even in a bad cause, but 
in a good one, like ours, render him irresistible. With such aid as 
you bring us, fair ladies, success is inevitable; and not more did 
our Whig fathers owe to the Whig mothers of the Revolution, 
than we owe to their noble daughters. While we acknowledge 



320 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

our inability to pay, we will at least never repudiate the pleasing 
debt. 

Permit me again, ladies, to tender you my most profound 
acknowledgments for the very great honor you have conferred 
on me, and allow me to express my fervent wishes for the 
health and happiness of each one of you. 

With sentiments of respectful regard, 
I am, your most devoted 

and obedient servant, 

S. S. Peentiss. 

Mrs. Prentiss requests me to thank you, in her behalf, for the 
kind tender of your hospitalities, and to express her regret that 
she will not have the opportunity of availing herself of them. 

The Hon. James C. Jones — then Governor of Tennessee, 
and now one of her Senators in Congress — has kindly furnished 
the following reminiscences of Mr. Prentiss' visit and speeches 
at Nashville.* In no part of the country had he warmer 
friends and admirers than in Tennessee ; a State distin- 
guished beyond almost every other in the Union for the 
political intelligence of its citizens. 

JAMES 0. JONES TO THE EDITOR. 

Memphis, Feb. 12, 1851. 
Dear Sir : — 

It gave me sincere pleasure to receive your letter 

of the 31st ultimo, because it conveys to me the intelligence that 



* In a letter, dated Nashville, July 13, 1844, Governor Jones writes to Mr. P. : 
•'This is the battle-ground of the nation, and I know, my dear sir, it is incompat- 
ible with your generous nature to refuse to come to the rescue. AU eyes are now 
turned to Tennessee. It is not my habit to flatter ; and, if it were, my appreciation 
of your character would forbid its attempt with you ; but I must say, in all candor 
and truth, that there is no man living who would be so kindly and cordially received 
in Tennessee: no man living can command so large a crowd as yourself. All wish 
to hear you, particularly since Polk is a candidate. Then come ; come for your 
country's sake." 



VISIT TO NASHVILLE. 321 

our country is to eojoy the benefit of a biography of one of het 
most distinguished and talented sons. Some of the pleasantest 
days of my life were spent in the society, and under the hos- 
pitable roof, of your lamented brother. The only regret I feel, 
in connection with your letter, is a consciousness of my utter 
inability to do justice to his genius, as displayed on the occasion 
to which you refer. To give anything like an adequate concep- 
tion of his two addresses at Nashville is simply impossible. The 
night speech, especially, was an amazing exhibition of oratorical 
power and beauty. I have heard many of the most gifted of our 
country ; but I never heard, never expect to hear, eloquence to 

compare with that ! 

There are numerous incidents, connected with your brother's 
visit to Tennessee in 1844, possessing great interest to his friends 
and admirers. Many of them I treasure in unfading memory ; 
and should I ever enjoy the pleasure of meeting you, shall take 
much satisfaction in relating them. The space of a letter forbids 
the attempt; it would require a book. 

The occasion of his visit was one of unusual interest. It was 
a time of the greatest excitement. The distinguished of almost 
every State in the Union— of both political parties— had pre- 
viously been with us. The fame of your brother had preceded 
his coming. The universal solicitude to see and hear him 
amounted to an enthusiasm, intense and painful; thousands 
upon thousands were assembled, eager to gratify this desire. 
I was one amongst the few of our citizens, who had heard him 
and enjoyed his personal acquaintance. 

The boat, on which he came up the river, reached the vicinity 
of the city in the night. Repairing thither early in tlie morning, 
I found Mr. Prentiss deeply impressed with a sense of the mag- 
nitude and importance of the occasion, and painfully alive to the 
responsibilities that attached to him. I never before saw him 
manifest half so much anxiety. He seemed to think that his 
reputation was at stake ; he was to stand where Clay, Cass, Crit- 
tenden, and others like them, had stood ; he was to appear before 
thousands, who had come up from nearly half the States of the 
Union. His whole demeanor indicated a deep and solemn feel* 
VOL. II. 14* 



322 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

ing of the fiery ordeal he was called to pass ; he also spoke of it 
to me with the utmost coucern. Loving him as a brother, I 
sympathized fully with him, and felt the greatest solicitude for 
the result. 

When he reached the city, he was met by a great multi- 
tude on the shore, and conducted to one of the hotels, where he 
was welcomed, and where he made a short but eloquent response. 
From the hotel he was conducted to his quarters, the private 
residence of Mr. Morgan. This was the day preceding the 
meeting of the Convention. I visited him often during the time 
that intervened. I found him still anxious and thoughtful, far 
more so than was usual with him. 

When the hour arrived, I called to accompany him to the 
ground. The procession was most imposing. The crowd almost 
innumerable, with banners, pageants, music, and all the other 
" porap and circumstance " of a Presidential Election campaign. 
The scene was beyond measure exciting. Mr. Peentiss was 
quiet, thoughtful, and somewhat melancholy. He seemed to feel 
as one who had a mighty work to do, and was resolved to " do 
or die." 

The Convention assembled. The people gathered eagerly, 
with anxious countenances, around the stand from which the 
address was to delivered. It was a memorable occasion — one I 
shall never forget ; one that thousands in Tennessee, and other 
States, can never forget. It was to me a moment of most pain- 
ful excitement ; you know something of the feeling of one friend 
for another under such circumstances. 

The time came. He arose, calm and collected. The interest 
of the vast assembly was so intense that it seemed you could see 
and feel it — that it was something material, something that 
could be touched. He had not completed his first sentence 
before the agony with me was over ; I knew that all was well. 
My friend was safe. 

He entranced the immense crowd, that was estimated by acres^ 
for about two and a half hours. The applause was terrific. 
It would be impossible, at this late day, to give even a tole- 
rable outline of his speech ; but the argument, sentiments, illus- 



VISIT TO NASHVILLE. 323 

trations, manner, were alike admirable. The effect was over- 
whelming, and his few friends who were accustomed to hear 
him, felt that it was the test effort of his life — a monument on 
which he might securely rest his fame. But so captivated were 
his hearers, that no entreaty was of any avail ; they were unwil- 
ling to disperse for their homes, until they had again heard that 
manly, eloquent voice that so thrilled their souls — the music of 
which still lingered around their hearts like the expiring strains 
of some enchanting melody. 

It was decided that he should address the Convention again at 
night in Court Square. And here, in my judgment, did your 
gifted brother place the cap-stone on the pyramid of his fame. 
I have heard renowned orators ; I have been transported with 
visions of fancy and hope. I had heard S. S. Peentiss, 
and thought I had heard him do all that man could do. But 
the most magnificent display of intellectual power, beauty, and 
eloquence, that I ever heard, was reserved for this occasion. I 
confess I was a great admirer of Mr. PkejSttiss ; but I feel certain 
that my feelings do not mislead my judgment of this speech. 
Friends and political opponents all join in tributes of praise and 
wonder in memory of the splendid genius which shone forth on 
that night! 

I accompanied him to the ground. The Square was crowded 
with an immense assembly of ladies as well as gentlemen. He 
opened his address with exceeding beauty, and at each step 
seemed to attain some greater height, until all minds, hearts, and 
imaginations were carried captive at his will. In the midst of 
this transcendent effort, he was taken with stricture of the chest, 
to which he was subject, the result of over-exertion in speaking. 
He stated to the audience his indisposition, and expressed his 
regret that he could not conclude his address. The voice came 
up from thousands of sympathizing hearts, " Sit down and rest," 
''Don't quit P " We will wait on you." Such was the soUci- 
tude manifested to hear him still further, that he was compelled 
to yield to the suggestion.* After sitting down for a few mo- 



* It i3 said that as Mr. P. fainted and sunk into the arms of his friends, one of 
them (Gov. Jones himself, I have been told) exclaimed, in the enthusiasm of the 



824 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

ments, tlie attack passed off, or abated ; whereupon he arose and 
continued his address, with undiminished interest, to the close. 
And with it closed, I repeat, the most consummate exhibition of 
oratory which I ever witnessed ; and should I be spared to the 
most venerable old age, I never expect to hear it equalled. 

I have thus given you a very hasty sketch of this occasion. If 
I had time and ability, gladly would I devote them to the pleas- 
ing task of doing justice to the memory of one of the noblest 
Bpecimens of humanity I ever saw — S. S. Prentiss. 

Respectfully your servant, 

James 0. Jones. 

Here follows Mr. Prentiss' own brief account of the 
Convention : 

TO HIS YOUNGEST BROTHER. 

Nashyuxe, Aug. 26, 1844^ 
Dear George: — 

I have been here just a week, and you are, doubt- 
less, surprised that I have not written you before. But, in truth, 
I have not been able. I broke myself down by speaking, and 
can now barely drag a pen over paper. I shall give you but 
little account of our "Whig doings here, as you will see it all in the 
papers. "We have had a most glorious Convention ; far exceed- 
iDg in numbers and enthusiasm anything I ever saw. My own 
opinion is, that there were 40,000 people present. It is 
admitted that this Convention exceeded in number by one- 
third, at least, the great one of 1840, and to the same 
extent, exceeded the Democratic Convention of the 15th. 
Altogether, it was the most magnificent affair I ever witnessed. 
1 made the opening speech, and another on the next day. I 
tliink they were both good speeches — I mean, as compared with 
my other efforts. I do not think I have ever spoken better, 

moment, *' Die, Prentiss, die I yoa will never have a more glorious opportunity !*• 
—Ed. 



SPEECH AT NATCHEZ. 325 

taking into consideration the object and circumstances. As far 
as public estimation is concerned, I have no cause to complain. 
They heap compliments upon me till I am almost crushed 
- beneath them. Mj reception has been more than kind, it haa 
been enthusiastic ; and if I find all well at home, I shall not 
regret my trip. You will learn all that has occurred through 
the public papers. I think I shall be able to accomplish my 
private business here, though it is not yet concluded. I leave 
to-night in the stage for Millspoint, on the Mississippi, and trust 
to be at home by Saturday. I should have started day before 
yesterday, but was so entirely exhausted by my efforts that I 
was quite sick, and unable to travel. I am better to-day, and 
shall hurry for dear Belmont. Who knows what has happened 
there since my absence. I am under great anxiety. Should any- 
thing evil have happened, I should never forgive myself. But 
I only intended to drop you a line now; I will write again 
when I get home. My love to you all. 

Your affectionate brother, 

S. S. Peentiss 

From this time Mr. Prentiss was constantly engaged in 
the pending contest, until his strength became so exhausted 
as to force him to stop. Soon after his return from Ten- 
nessee, he attended a Grand Mass Meeting at Natchez, to 
which he was invited by a lar^e number of ladies. Accom- 
panying their invitation, was a letter from a well-known 
professional gentleman of Natchez, in which he says : "No 
person but yourself, in my opinion, could have induced the 
ladies to join in requesting a political address. You will 
duly appreciate their sensitiveness ; and the privacy, ov free- 
masonry, which their delicacy desires above all things, will, 
I am sure, be cordially observed by you. I do most 
earnestly hope that you may be able to spend at least one 
day with us. I can say, in sincerity, that nothing could 
more gratify and cheer us, one and all, male and female, 



326 MEMOIR OF S, S. PRENTISS. 

than your presence." The following is an account of this 
splendid barbacue : 

Before describing Mr. Peextiss' great speech at Natchez, 
lu 1844, let me say a word of the day and the scene in the 
n.idst of wiiich it was delivered. Long will that day and that 
serine be remembered by the people of ISTatchez, and by the 
thousands of strangers who sojonrned within its gates! The 
thu.ider of cannon ushered in the dawn, and at sunrise tho 
"WhOi'e city was alive and moving. It was a glorious morning 
in ea/ly autumn, and the clear, elastic atmosphere rung with 
the n.erry laugh of the multitude, as they eagerly thronged 
the s\h eets. In all directions, too, were heard fine strains of 
martial music. For some hours every avenue that led to the 
city was lined with horsemen and carriages ; while one delega- 
tion aftet another, from the river counties, from New Orleans, 
and the neighboring parishes of Louisiana, were still arriving. 
As the ste^vmers on which they came announced their approach 
by the firing of cannon, then " rounded to," and, amid the loud 
Imrrahs of the crowd assembled on shore, landed them at the 
sound of drums, trumpets, and clashing cymbals, the effect was 
quite electrical. 

At length, all things being in readiness, the gay Whig army 
moved on to their grand Mass Convention. It was a noble 
civic spectacle. Ahead of the procession rolled a Big Ball, emble- 
matic of the saying " TJie hall is in motion V '''•Keep the hall 
rolling r"* It w^as sixteen feet in diameter, revolved in a huge 
frame work supported by four wheels of solid iron, and was 
drawn by three yokes of oxen. It was covered with patriotic 
sentiments and the names of the different States, and was, in 
every respect, a colossal affair. But it would require a book 
fully to describe this gorgeous procession, or the excitement of 
the scene when it reached the ground. Some of the banners 
were really beautiful specimens of art. There were one hundred 
and sixty-six of them, wrought by fair hands, chiefly for the 
occasion ; all embellished, too, with graceful mottoes, breathing 
iloye of '^"untry and admiration for Henry Clay. 



SPEECH AT NATCHEZ. 32T 

The place selected for the meeting was beautiful in the 
extreme ; it was one of those spots so common about Natchez, 
where wealth and taste have guarded the primitive forest, and 
left it to luxuriate in its own native splendor, A lovely grove, 
surrounding a natural amphitheatre, it reminded one of Milton's 
description of Paradise : 

»« Overhead upgrew 

Insuperable height of loftiest shade — 
Cedar, and pine, and fir, and branching palm, 
A sylvan scene ; and, as the ranks ascend, 
Shade above shade, a woody theatre 
Of stateliest view." 

The rostrum, which commanded the whole scene, was supported 
on either side by a gigantic old oak ; in its architecture it might 
have served for a model ; its proportions were so correct, that it 
looked like the porch of some rural temple; its wings were 
adorned with floral pyramids, between which the speaker stood 
while addressing the multitude ; around its white columns wound 
wreaths of rich evergreens, myrtle, and jessamine, circling 
upwards to the central arch, where the choicest flowers were 
entwined in the the folds of our national flag; upon the key- 
stone rested a speaking bust of Henry Clay. In the rear of the 
speaker hung a portrait of the Father of his Country. At the 
f(jot of the steps that led to the platform were magnificent orange- 
trees, connected with the ascent above by rows of costly exotics. 
These embellishments all betrayed the exquisite taste and elabo- 
rate handiwork of woman. In front of the " stand " were ranged 
comfortable seats for some three thousand persons; those 
designed for the ladies being covered with the finest prints of a 
new cotton factory just established in Natchez. Above this 
ground stretched out, until lost ia the distant shade, tables, 
groaning with every possible luxury ; while costly equipages, 
in picturesque groups, were scattered all around. 

After a prayer by one of the clergymen present, and the cere- 
mony of presenting banners, the Convention was addressed by 
several speakers, and then proceeded en masse to dinner. The 
dinner was a genuine specimen of our Southern barbecues. It 



328 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

resembled a splendid board spread for a marriage festival ; tho 
provisions were so ample, too, that a besieged city as large a? 
ijTatchez might have subsisted upon them for weeka on full 
allowance. 

Dinner being ended, the cry ran through the crowd, like an 
electric shock : " Peentiss is going to spealc ! Peentiss is going 
to speaTcP'' All hastily rose, as one man, and hurried back to 
the amphitheatre. As soon as order was restored, the immense 
throng sent up a shout that rang out loud and clear through the 
grove, "Peentis8! Peentiss!" The scene at this moment was 
picturesque and stirring in the extreme ; it was enough to create 
eloquence from beneath the ribs of death. As Mr. Peentiss, in 
obedience to this summons, limped forward and presented him- 
self between the beautiful floral columns we have described, he 
was assailed with long continued shouts of welcome. He seemed 
to be deeply impressed with the events of the day. Indeed, 
several circumstances combined to render the occasion one 
of peculiar interest to him. Along this grove he had often 
ridden, some sixteen years before, an unknown Yankee school- 
master; when not a few of the proud dames and aristocratic 
planters, who were now eager to bask in the sunshine of his 
genius, would have hardly deigned to notice him. Others he 
saw before him, who even then had taken him by the hand, and 
ever since been among his most devoted friends and admirers. 
He perceived, too, in the crowd, leading members of the oppo- 
site party, for whom he cherished a warm personal esteem. 
Added to all the rest, this was likely to be the last political 
speech he would ever make in Natchez ; as, indeed, it proved. 
He was, too, just from the great TVhig Convention at Nashville, 
and the glory of that vast gathering seemed to be still playing 
about his brow. 

And now how vain would be the attempt to daguerreotype 
that speech ! It was, unquestionably, one of the greatest in 
thought, beauty, power, and visible effect, that even Mr. Pren- 
tiss ever made.* 

* Those who heard this speech seem all to have had the same feeling about trying 
lo describe it. One gentleman wrote, a day or two after, " that he would not dare 



SPEECH AT NATCHEZ. 329 



His gestures did obey 



The oracular mind, that made his features glow, 
. And when his curved lips half open lay, 

Passion's divinest stream had made impetuous way." 

I can only give a brief outline of his argument — merely tell 
you its subject-matter. Beginning, in a simple strain, with a 
highly poetical appeal to the wood-nymphs who sported among 
the trees, he skillfully turned it into a series of elegant com- 
pliments to the ladies, whose presence threw a halo about the 
deliberations of the day. Nothing could exceed the knightly 
courtesy with which he always addressed the fair sex. How he 
would lean towards them, call them " the blessed of all God's 
handiwork ;" compare their eyes to " day-stars ;" and then revel, 
like another Puck, among the radiant smiles called forth by his 
own happy images ! He had special reason to be gratified on 
this occasion, for it was solely in obedience to a pressing invita- 
tion from the ladies that he had consented to be present.* 

From this graceful exordium, the orator parsed, by an easy 
transition, to the graver part of his task. Referring to the multi- 
tude he saw before him, and to the still laj-ger multitudes he had 
recently witnessed in Tennessee, he said that he could not look 
upon such immense exhibitions of "congregated humanity" 
without terror; and he earnestly prayed that, in November, 
the principles of our Government might be so firmly settled as 
to render unnecessary for half a century another such uprising 



to attempt a report of this tremendous address. It was a magnificent burst of elo- 
quence ; an outpouring of honest Americanism, love of the Union, the Nation, the 
Constitution— law, order, society, and religion ; carrying death and destruction into 
the ranks of Locofocoism, Dorrism, &c." Another wrote: "Who could report 
that speech? who describe it? who give even an outline of it? Nobody could do 
it. As well might you attempt to write down the whisUing of the whirlwind, the 
roaring of the tornado, the rumbling of the thunder, or the notes of the J^.olian 
harp, as to make intelligible by the art of writing the speech delivered by Mr. Pren- 
tiss, at Natchez, last Thursday." — Ed. 

* It is estimated that there were nearly a thousand ladies on the ground. Pro- 
bably no orator had ever before addressed such a fair assembly in the Southwest. 
Not only were the principal ladies in Natchez and its vicinity present, but others 
had come from remote points of Louisiana. So great was the anxiety to hear Mr. 
Prentiss, that some, unable to do so on any other condition, actually brought theil 
ycung infants, and sat with them in their arms during the whole of hia addresfc 



330 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

of the people. (The audience, for some minutes, applauded this 
sentiment.) Nothing but great and deep-seated causes could 
produce such vast popular excitement. Wliat were these causes ? 
In answering this question, he entered upon an elaborate review 
of the measures and principles involved, as he believed, in the 
coming Presidential struggle. Having briefly considered the 
leading measures of public policy, he then passed to a discussion 
of principles. And here lay the main stress of his argument. 
Drawing a plain distinction between what he termed Democracy 
and Locofocoism, giving to the first the attributes of honesty and 
patriotisjn, he denounced the latter as destructive of order and 
government, and scathed it as with a hot iron. This was the 
chief topic of his address. Locofocoism he defined to be the 
spirit of lawlessness. Although wearing the mask and name of 
Democracy, it was, in truth, the incarnate fiend of anarchy and 
license. It abhorred all restraints, constitutional, legal or moral, 
which stood in the way of its own selfish and wicked schemes. 
It was at war with the first principles of our American system 
of Liberty, and unless conquered, the experiment of popular 
Belf-government must inevitably fail. How long could our Eepub- 
licau Institutions survive the general establishment throughout 
the Union of Repudiation and Dorr Rebellions ? Yet these are 
the legitimate fruits of this lawless spirit. And was there no 
ground for alarm when such bodies as the great Democratic 
Convention, lately assembled at Nashville, invited the rebel Dorr 
as a distinguished guest ? 

Going into a profound analysis of the elements of the 
social system, he showed how order and legal restraint are 
essential to its existence. He then gave a sort of natural history 
of Locofocoism, tracing it back to the first great law-breaker, as 
described by Milton in his immortal epic, when 



" him the Almighty Power 

Hurl'd headlong flaming from th' ethereal sky 
With hideous ruin and combustion, down 
To bottomless perdition.'* 

This spirit has been the source of infinite mischief ever sincek 



SPEECH AT NATCHEZ. 331 

It spoiled Eden,* and the whole history of the world is replete 
with lessons on its disastrous influence upon human society. The 
Jacobinism of the French Revolution was an outbreak of it. 
Until of late years, we had deemed it incapable of growth on 
our American soil; but we were mistaken. It has already 
infected the body politic, and unless we could eject the poison, 
our liberties would, in the end, fall a prey to it. 

Upon this dark and repulsive background of Locofocoism, he 
painted, in rainbow colors, the fair forms of law, freedom, and 
social well-being ; three in name, but in essence one and indivi- 
sible. Having finished this grand moral picture, he proceeded 
to run a parallel between James K. Polk and Henry Clay, the 
two candidates for the Presidency. It was a fine subject for 
the power of contrast, and he handled it with consummate skill. 
Mr. Polk was, no doubt, a worthy man, of exemplary private 
virtues, and respectable as a politician. But beside the lofty 
figure, heroic qualities, and historical name, of his great compe- 
titor, he looked small and flat indeed. Mr. Prentiss' portraiture 
of Henry Clay, on this occasion, was, probably, one of the finest 
things he ever did. It was, in fact, his ideal of an American 
Statesman and President.f 

* Th' infernal serpent ; he it was whose guile, 
Stirr'd up with envy and revenge, deceiv'd 
The mother of mankind, what time his pride 
Had cast him out from heav'n, with aU his host 
Of rebel angels ; by whose aid, aspiring 
To set himself in glory above his peers, 
He trusted to have equalled the Most High, 
If He opposed ; and, with ambitious aim 
Against the throne and monarchy of God 
Rais'd impious war in Heaven, and battle proud. 

Paradise Lost, &. 1. 

t It was evident that his parallel between the candidates for the Presidency was 
to be a masterly effort, and no one was disappointed. 

His portrait of Mr. Clay on the occasion, as we recall it to our mind, was one that 
can never be forgotten by those who heard it; there was a tangible massiveness 
and grandeur about it, as perceptible as if he had raised the mighty head of Mount 
St. Bernard from out of the alluvial plains of the Mississippi, and bid his enraptured 
auditory gaze upon the cloud-capped summit. There was also a softness and beauty, 
a perfection and minute completeness, that strangely harmonized. Ho opened the 
musty archives of antiquity for Ulustration ; he drew from all modern quarters for 



832 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

His peroration, which contained a touching apostrophe to 
the Union, melted his audience to tears, and left every heart 
glowing with a holy enthusiasm for the honor, perpetuity, and 
glory of the Republic. Indeed, the most striking feature of his 
speech was its patriotic American spirit. One single thought 
seemed to inspire and captivate him — the highest good of the 
whole country, North, South, East and West. 

Such is a feeble outline of this extraordinary address. It was 
a marvel of oratorical power, and seemed to embrace the quint- 
essence of all the political reflection of his life. At times the 
whole vast assembly were convulsed with emotion. Some wept, 
some laughed hysterically, some were pallid with fear. The 
plaudits were terrific, '''•outvoicing the deep-mouthed sea ^ They 
who heard that speech, will have marked September 6, 1844, 
with a white stone.* 

comparisons ; and, still ascending, would replume his wings, soaring still upward in 
untrodden regions of eloquence, until he piled " Pelion on Ossa," and made the 
very reason of his audience tremble on its throne. Suddenly he paused, and with a 
voice as of a trumpet, asked, " Who is the opponent of Henry Clay ?" His eyes 
flashed unwonted fire, and you saw him falling headlong from his dizzy height, but 
his very course marked the impetus of a destroying angel ; you saw that there was 
a vial of wrath in his hand, a consuming fire in his eye ; he fairly struggled and 
heaved with emotion. The foam dashed from his lips, and he repeated in defiant 
notes, "Who is the opponent of Mr. Clay?" and he then hissed the answer, "A 
blighted burr, that has fallen from the mane of the war-horse of the Hermitage !" 
The effect of all this upon the audience, under the circumstances, cannot be 
imagined. Shouts rose, such as come forth in victorious battle-fields, but which, 
save by Prentiss, were never heard by the ear of the American orator. 

But Prentiss really carried no bitterness in his spirit ; he bore down upon his 
opponents and poured in his broadsides of irony and sarcasm with the power of a 
man-of-war, but the moment the action ceased, he was ready to muzzle his gun, 
and succor the wounded and dying. — J. B. Tliorpe's Reminiscences, 1S51. 

* " The finest political address ever made by your brother, is said to have been 
one delivered to an immense concourse of ladies and gentlemen at Natchez, in 1844, 
He himself thought it the greatest of all his speeches. I would suggest your writing 

to Mr. for an account of it, and also an incident which occurred during its 

delivery. A young man was so entirely absorbed in the speaker, that, unconscious 
of all about him, he seemed completely spell-bound. His body would sway to 
and fro, would rise and fall, in obedience to the changing sentiments ; while his 
countenance indicated the most intense excitement and self-oblivion. Your brother 
whose attention was attracted by the young man's ecstatic appearance, afterwards 
declared it the greatest oratorical triumph of bis life." — Letter from Wm. O, 
Smedes, Esq., 1363. 



SPEECH AT JACKSON. 333 

One other speech ought not to pass unnoticed, inasmuch 
as it was his farewell address to Mississippi. It was at a 
Grand Two Days Mass Meeting, held at Jackson, early in 
October. The following is chiefly an abridgment of a con- 
temporary notice in the Vtcksburg Whig : 

"When the name of Mr. Peentiss was announced, it seemed to 
us as if an electric touch had aroused the crowd ; every face 
beamed with an intense interest and pleasure ; and when he 
appeared at the stand, a simultaneous shout broke forth from 
every lip, vrhile the twenty-six virgin representatives of the 
States gracefully raised their banners, presenting to the view of 
their gifted orator, at a glance, the briglit galaxy of that glori- 
ous Union which he so ardently loves and so ably advocates. 
We fancied we perceived an additional lustre in his eyes, as he 
cast a glance of patriotic pride at the banner of his native State. 
And here we would willingly close ; for a task is before us which 
we feel wholly incompetent to perform. Who can describe his 
speech without being guilty of mutilating a thing too precious 
to be touched by any but a master hand. He set out by explan- 
ing the various forms of government — monarchical, republican, 
&c. — and showing the conditions under which alone a people 
can wisely govern themselves. In this part of the speech, 
he illustrated, in a very beautiful manner, the necessity 
of knowledge and general education in a Republic Hke ours. 
He then passed to the Protective Policy, explained its opera- 
tion, and contended that if any interest in America was more 
benefited than another by the Tariff, it was the cotton- 
growing interest of the South. He earnestly deprecated those 
invidious distinctions which the Locofoco leaders attempt to 
draw between the North and South, and showed in what a 
miserable, helpless plight the South would find herself, if the 
Union were dissolved. * * * _g^j. ^,jjen Mr. 

Prentiss spoke of his intention to leave the State of Mississippi 
— that this, in all probability, was the last political speech he 
^ould ever make in it— the effect upon the feelings of the audi- 
ence baffles description. The eyes, which a few moments before 



334 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

beamed with delight at his biirniug eloquence, now became 
dimmed with tears. A solemn gloom spread upon every face, 
and when he bid his old friends and admirers a kindly farewell, 
even those whose political ditferences liad long estranged them 
from him, but who still loved their State, could not conceal their 
regret that it was about to lose one of its brightest ornaments. 

This is the first time we have witnessed thousands shed tears 
at a political meeting. When Mr. Prentiss closed, the audience 
sat perfectly motionless; although dinner was announced, not 
one moved ; and not until the President called upon the Glee 
Club to sing a song, did the audience recover from the gloom 
which the clo^ing remarks of Mr. P. had cast over them. We 
have heard many speeches, and praised them — we have read 
many, which we thought could not be excelled ; but Mr. Peen:- 
Tiss spoke, at this time, as no other man that we have heard or 
read of, ever spoke. It seemed as if all the gods had contributed 
to form him, and that the present occasion was set apart to call 
forth the richness of their gifts. 

Many a time have we sat and listened to him with delight, and 
felt anxious to bestow upon him our humble meed of praise; but 
would curb our inclination, lest what we considered stinted jus- 
tice might call forth the vituperations of unscrupulous and 
depraved party organs. But now that he is soon to depart from 
our State, we may, at least, join our bumble voice to that of 
thousands of more competent judges. Yet, our joy at his great- 
ness is dimmed by the recollection that we are soon to lose him. 
We feel, like thousands of our fellow-citizens, that Mississippi is 
about to part with her most precious jewel, a jewel whose value 
cannot be fully estimated until it is gone. Yes, the Whig party 
will lose the most able exponent of their principles, the bar its 
brightest ornament, and the social circle its very life and soul. 

The following extract deserves a place here. It is from 
a letter of Joseph D. Shields, Esq., of Natchez : 

You have received too many accounts of the great speech at 
Natchez, for me to attempt one. There was a magic in his name 



LETTER FROM MR. SHIELDS. 33g 

which upset all preconcerted arrangements. On the principal 
day of that Grand Convention, an effort was made to briui? on 
the speakers in a regular order of succession; but PiiExoss! 
Peextiss! was the cry, and nothing could stay the tumult until 
he showed himself. His wonderful voice compassed the immense 
crowd. Wljat most astonished everybody, was his power of 
making the masses comprehend the greatest and deepest 
thoughts. He clothed the abstruse philosophy of government 
and society with such plain, familiar, yet vivid ima-es, that the 
most illiterate at once caught his meaning. The classical allu- 
sions and quotations from the poets, by which he also illustrated 
his subject, seemed never to weary his audience. His langua-e 
was singularly correct. No matter how rapidly the grand and 
noble sentiments gushed forth from his inexhaustible mind, the 
words were always ready to clothe them in the most proper 
and graceful drapery. If, by accident, the wrong word escaped 
him, he would stop in his headh)ug torrent and correct himself 
without the slightest confusion. The break, indeed, seemed to 
give emphasis to the sentence. I remember an incident of the 
kind, that happened while he was speaking at Rodney, in the 
Presidential campaign of 18M. His speech was, in part, expla- 
natory of the one delivered at Natchez. That had been grossly 
misrepresented. Mr. Peentiss said he wished not to be misun- 
derstood ; that his associations in that (Jefferson) county in 
early manhood, were of the pleasantest character; that his friends 
there were among the most cherished of his life ; that some of 
those friends were Democrats. He always distinguished, he 
said, between Democracy and Locofocoism. While he disap- 
proved of the former and reasoned against it, he should ever 
denounce the hitter. To him Locofocoism wasZ«^./m;.m; and 
as he had said at Natchez, the first great Locofoco of the uni- 
verse (principium et fons veneni) was the devil himself-for he 
had begun by violating the law, and advising others to do so. 
_ In the course of his speech, he combated the position that the 
immediate annexation of Texas was necessary as a measure of 
detence against Mexico. He gave a graphic description of our 
country—Its vast extent, resources, and power. Then turning 



336 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

to the magnificent river flowing by, he spoke of the distant 
mountains calcined with coal. Although under full headway, he 
instantly stopped, substituted the right word, and then soared 
away like an eagle ! I think his appeal to the young men, on 
this occasion, in behalf of the old Whig Chieftain, was the most 
rousing peroration I ever heard. 

When commenting on Mr. Walker's Texas letter, which was 
so garbled as to suit the North and South, his rebuke was 
terrible. Grasping the two letters, and dashing them together 
under his feet, he wound up with the climax : " I wonder that, 
like the acid and the alkali, they do not effervesce as they touch 
each other!" 

On that day, at Rodney, he spoke three hours. I met him in 
the evening, and found him utterly jaded and worn down. 
Even during the address, his physical frame was so exhausted 
that he was frequently overcome and compelled to stop ; but the 
buoyancy of his spirit triumphed over bodily weakness. After 
every rest, he took a yet higher bound. Referring to his speech, 
he said to me : "I am like a weak horse running down hill — 
when I start I cannot stop." This, I believe, was the last time I 
ever conversed with him. He always treated me witli affection, 
and wished me success in a tone of voice that I knew was 
sincere. When he went to Congress, I was in Virginia. In 
reply to a letter of mine, which, after making certain inquiries, 
congratulated him on his brilliant entrance upon public life, I 
remember how kindly he replied, and how he hoped a like pros- 
perous career might await me. 

The public often forced him to tax his wonderful powers far 
beyond his physical strength. They thus literally helped to 
destroy the idol they worshiped. He could hardly stop for an 
hour on a journey, without being waylaid to make a speech. A 
friend of mine, who was a professor in Centenary College, told 
me that Mr. Prentiss once happened to stop there. The boys 
heard of it, and insisted upon having a speech. Peextiss begged 
and entreated to be let off; but finally yielded to their entrea- 
ties, on condition that he was to have an hour to prepare 
himself. At the appointed time he rose and gave them a lecture 



TONE OF HIS si?>EECHES. 33t 

on Geography. The professor said that it was the most beautiful 
address he ever heard. 



His speeches at Natchez and Jackson, as was to be 
expected, gave great offence. He thus alludes to the fact 
in a letter to Richard T. Archer, Esq., of Port Gibson ; 



ViCKSBusa, Oct. 17, 1844. 

Dear Aechee: — 

I have just received, and read with much pleasure, 
your kind and friendly letter of the 15th inst. I fully appreciate 
and reciprocate your sentiments, and you do me no more than 
justice in supposing that political differences can never inter- 
vene between me and my old friends, among whom I am proud 
(and hope always) to number you. 

I need not say, that towards the Locofoco party in this State, 
as represented, during the last few years, by its acts, as well as 
by a large majority of its leaders, I entertain feelings of the 
utmost disgust, contempt, and abhorrence. With regard to the 
opinions of the people in relation to me, whether Whig or Demo- 
crat (excepting ahva3's a small number of personal friends) I care 
not a fig. My exertions, such as they have been, have resulted 
entirely from a conviction of duty. I maintain the Whig cause^. 
not the Whig party. 

You have been misinformed both as to the character of my 
late speeches as well as of ray health. My general health is 
excellent. I am suffering some little inconvenience from sore- 
ness of the tliroat and breast, caused by too great exertion in 
speaking, which has compelled me to decline all further political 
invitations; for I dare not risk the destruction of my voice, as 
my profes^^ion depends upon it. 

My speeches have not been lialf as severe against Locofocoism 
as they used to be, and as you have heard in former days. 
All the accounts of my speeches at Natchez and Jackson, by 
the Locofoco press, or speakers, are false, and willfully and 

VOL. II. 15 



338 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

maliciously so ; I said no more than I have always said — tlian 1 
will always say.* 

♦ * ite ^c « 

But enough of this. I hope soon to see you, Archer, and we 
•will then talk matters all over. You will not find the grasp of 



* The real tone of his speeches cannot, perhaps, be better indicated than by 
citing a few passages of a long and striliing communication, addressed to him by an 
unknown gentleman of Vicksburg. It is dated Sept. 19th^lS44, and consists chiefly 
of an earnest argument and appeal to him on the subject of personal religion. The 
style shows a want of literaiy culture, but this is more than supplied by strong sense 
and ardent, friendly feeling. The allusion to Jacob's ladder, referred to in the 
extract, appears, from another part of the communication, to have been designed to 
typify the influence of social order and good laws in raising man above his mere 
animal life of "eating, drinking, and wearing clothes," while they open to him a 
vision of his higher nature, and of that moral end for which he was created. 

" In compliance with the wish of my wife, we attended the meeting of the citizens 
at the club-room last night, and were very much gratified with the spirit and senti- 
ments of yoxxr speech. And the very appropriate suggestions which you made in 
regard to Jacob's ladder, with the charitable sentiments which you advanced on the 
subject cf opinions, induced me to think you were not quite so far from the King- 
dom of Heaven as reports had led me to conclude. My dear sir, do you spend, and 
are you spent, for the propagation and maintenance of those great principles of Law 
and Order, which are the foundation of happiness on earth and in heaven ? And 
do you not love God, who, for the honor and establishment of those principles, has 
taken upon Himself our nature? * * * * If you do not, why ? Simply 
because you have been driven and drawn along the current of life with such interest 
and velocity as never to look, with any degree of steadfastness, to the Cross, the 
glorious Cross of Christ ! 

" I have seen you often, but never heard you until last night. I am unknown to 
you, and expect so to remain. Not that I am destitute of ambition ; but for twenty 
years my ambition has been to love God, to live for God, to gain the highest place 
possible in His favor. Before last night, I never heard a political speech that I now 
recollect, though I have lived much in cities, and travelled much. I have never 
seen a President, nor an Ex-President ; I ask favors of none but God, and desire 
none but such as are granted because of my relation to Him. By much reading of 
the Bible, by frequent and regular attention to private prayer, I cultivate th 
spirit of filial fear, and in proportion as I feel this, I feel no other fear. 

*' I mention these things for the purpose of making the impression that I am con« 
scions of but one motive in introducing this address upon your attention — the 
almost irrepressible desire that your every thought may be brought into subjection 
to that Divine Law, which is ' holy, just, and good;^ and that all your powers and 
indefatigable energies may be engaged in the propagation of the principles of that 
Kingdom, which consists not in ' meat and dnnk ' (♦ eating, drinking, and wearing 
clothes '), but in ' rightccmsnesa and true holiness.'' "—Ed. 



RESULT OF THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION. 339 

my hand less warm, because we happen, for a moment, to differ 

on political matters. 

Very truly your friend, 

S. S. Prentiss. 

Mr. Prentiss, as might be supposed, was exceedingly 
chagrined at the defeat of Mr. Clay. He found it very hard 
to bear up under it with equanimity. Writing to a friend 
about the middle of December, he says : 

I am perfectly disgusted at the result of the election ; and 
almost despair of the Republic. Still there is some hope. The 
Whig party is really stronger now than it has been since the 
time of Washington. We have been beaten by the basest frauds 
and corruption ; but the Locofoco party contains the elements 
of its own destruction. My advice is, that the Whigs fight on 
manfully, under the same name, and for the same principles. If 
locofocoism cannot be conquered, then the experiment of self- 
government has failed. The Whigs embrace three-fourths of the 
intelligence, moral character, and property of the United States, 
and also a majority of the qualified voters. These seem to me 
to be strong elements of success. 

The result of the Presidential election of 1844 was, pro- 
bably, the sorest political disappointment ever experienced 
in the United States. It is said that as the news spread 
over the country, thousands of strong men wept like child- 
ren. Mr. Clay's success, at one time, had been deemed so 
certain, that the office-seekers among the "Whigs were already 
busy in arranging a division of the " spoils." But with the 
great body of his supporters, Mr. Clay's election was, unques- 
tionably, desired from motives of the purest patriotism. 
They honestly believed that his defeat would be a calamity, 
and his election a lasting advantage to the best interests of 
the Union. We are prone to make each new Presidential 
election the most important that ever occurred ; a tone 



340 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

of exaggeration is characteristic of the national temper, 
and can hardly be avoided in that contest ; each party is 
apt to think its own immediate success essential to the pro- 
sperity, if not to the existence, of the Republic. How- 
many w^ise and good men prophesied that the election of 
Mr. Jefferson would ruin the country ! How many 
repeated the prediction in the case of Gen. Jackson I Time 
has taught us that a Power infinitely stronger and more 
sagacious than that of any political party, guides the desti- 
nies of the Republic. And yet it cannot be denied that 
great issues, good or bad, are of necessity wrapt up in the 
character and public policy of the man who, for four years, 
occupies the Chief Magistracy of the nation. His executive 
power is almost imperial ; his legislative power, though 
indirect, is always great ; with a favoring majority, in both 
branches of Congress, it is next to irresistible ; while his 
power of patronage, and — if he be a mere party tool — of 
direct bribery and corruption, is vast, inexhaustible, and 
despotic. No thoughtful patriot can contemplate the rapid 
growth, or the possible misuse and abuse of such power, 
without anxious foreboding. There seems to be only one 
other force strong enough to cope with and keep it in check 
—that of a free Public Press. Were it not for this Argus- 
eyed sentinel, our liberties might, humanly speaking, readily 
fall a prey to the overshadowing influence and Praetorian 
bands of an idolized but unscrupulous Executive. History 
will, perhaps, show that the importance of the election of 
1844, after all; was not over-estimated. The immediate 
annexation of Texas— the overthrow of the Protective Policy 

the Mexican War— the possession and sudden settlement 

of California— the Slavery agitation and Compromise mea- 
sures of 1850— the Nebraska bill of 1854 -.—these are some 
of the things which, whether for better or for worse, have 
followed in the wake of Mr. Polk's election. 



SPEECH ON THE TARIFF 341 



APPENDIX TO CHAPTER XXII. 

The following sketch of a speech on the Tariff, is, perhaps^ 
entitled to a place here. I am indebted for it to Wm. 0. Smedes, 
Esq., of Vicksburg. He writes in relation to it : " You will find 
enclosed a speech, delivered by your brother before an associa- 
tion of mechanics, called the ' Clay Straight-out Club.' I was 
one of his auditors, seated on a bench without a back, and sur- 
rounded by a miscellaneous crowd of people. It was a long 
speech, made manifestly without preparation ; and struck me so 
much that I went home and, calamo currente, wrote it out, as 
well as I could, that night and early the following morning, 
from memory. On reading it to your brother, the next day, he 
hi-hly commended my diligence; but remarked, that it was not 
such a speech as he would have made on the subject to a different 
audience, which I very well knew. I fear you may be disap- 
pointed in it, though, as a reminiscence, I know it will be a 
pleasure to you to read it. Of course, in the mode of its preser- 
vation, it has lost most of the richness, fire, and beauty of the 
original ; but it will at least show the deep interest I felt in the 

speaker. 

During the Presidential election of 1844, he took an active 
part and had au intense desire for the success of Mr. Clay. The 
speech I send you, was dehvered during that canvass. The 
town was full of illuminations, processions with transparencies, 
&c and during his speech, the Jackson Clay Guards came in, 
marching from the depot to the sound of fife and drum. It 
created great stir in the meeting, which was held in a structure 
temporarily put up for the purpose. At fir.t we thought it was 
our political opponents marching by, and coming up to our room 
to drown our speaker and interrupt the meeting; and this, you 
know, with our people, suggested knives and pistols immediately. 
But when it turned out to be friends, all the way from Jackson, 
wholly unexpected, conning in on us with beautiful banners 
transparencies, torch-lights, and martial music, at nine odock 
at night, the excitement was intense and enthusiastic. Youi 



842 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

brother was full of it; after the meeting adjourned, and he was 
going off with his friends, amid the illuminations, he exclaimed, 
with his chest thrown out, and his hand upon it : ' What a glo- 
rious "Whig transparency my heart would make !' " 

Mb. President, and Ladies and Gentlemen : 

I am highly gratified to see so numerous and respectable an audience 
assembled upon this occasion ; and especially to the fair portion of my auditors do 
I feel under obligation for gracing this place, and honoring me, and those before 
whom I appear, with their presence to-night. But I am afraid they will be disap- 
pointed ; I am afraid they will not meet in the character of the topics I propose 
to touch upon this evening, what, perhaps, they expected. My opponents, I 
know, have given me a reputation for mingling with my political discussions, 
severe and somewhat bitter denunciations of themselves. In the intellectual 
feasts which I am supposed to serve up on ordinary occasions, the condiments and 
Bpices are said to form no inconsiderable part of the banquet. At this time, I shall 
mingle neither salt, pepper, spice, or vinegar, with what I may have lo oflFer you. I 
shall discuss one of the great questions upon which the two political parties, that now 
divide this nation, have taken contrary positions. I shall lay before you some sta- 
tistical facts, and make certain deductions from them, touching a subject in which, 
Mr. President, you, and the association to which you belong, as a portion of the 
mechanical and manufacturing population of the country, are especially and most 
deeply interested. 

In the consideration of this truly great question, involving, as it does, vital and 
permanent national interests, I shall, I trust, take no position, and indulge in no 
remarks, that do not properly belong to it, and that may not be listened to, if not 
with profit, at least with candor and attention, by either my Whig or Democratic 
friends. A portion of the Locofoco press have, I am aware, made most gross and 
slanderous statements respecting the character of the political addresses I 
have had the honor to deliver during the present canvass. They say I never make 
a speech, in which I do not abuse and insult every Democrat who attends. The 
charge is utterly false. It has never been my custom to abuse Democrats. I have 
spoken often in this city ; and defy any man, who ever heard me, to say that I have 
abused the great mass of the Democratic party. On the contrary, I have always 
declared my belief that they were honest, that they wished well to their country — • 
but were misled, misinformed, and mistaken. That corrupt leaders, influenced only 
by selfish and personal views, were guiding them astray, I have said often, and shall 
ever say. Their principles I have abused, and will abuse. For they are, in my 
opinion, ruinous to the best interests of the country — destructive, if ever fully 
carried out, of its existence even. Against these I have ever lifted up my voice. 
To make war upon these, my sword is ever in my hand. But the great body of the 
Democrats I regard as honest and patriotic citizens. They have no inducement not 
to be. 

I shall not dwell to-night upon what I deem the most important and distinctive 
features of the two parties — the tendencies of their political principles. Tbe.se, 
in my view, lie at the foundation of all the others. The tendency of Whig principles 
Tb conservative ; that of Locofoco principles, destructive. In my opinion, the samt 



SPEECH ON THE TARIFF. 343 

fatal and Jacobin doctrines which wrought the overthrow of France, and filled the 
streets of Paris with the blood of her best and noblest citizens ; doctrines which, by 
extending the principle of liberty until it terminates in licentiousness, give free rein 
and scope to the foulest passions of the human heart— are vigorously at work in the 
Locofocoism of the Democratic party. In that party extremes meet. Some of 
the purest and some of the worst men are contained in it. 

Seduced by the name, and to some extent by the nature of liberty, visionaries 
have ever been found, who were for giving it unlimited range. All law, they think 
but a restraint upon liberty, and that so far it is wrong. They treat man specula- 
tively, as though he were all good ; as though that period of millenial glory, looked 
for by the zealous Christian, when the lamb and the lion shall lie down together, 
were at this time a political fact. They forget the evil, that is part of man ; and 
that law is essential to restrain licentiousness, into which liberty, among bad men, 
is sure to degenerate. But there are others, who advocate similar doctrines with a 
full knowledge of their inevitable tendency ; they do it with the intention of turning 
them to their individual advantage. These are the men of whom the country has 
need to beware ; men in whose hearts the principles of the French Revolution find 
a ready echo ; men who, had they then lived, would have been prominent actors in 
those days of madness and terror. The two great parties have been travelling the 
highway of public prosperity together, until they have come to where the roads 
fork. The Whigs point to the same broad and beaten path, in which the Govern- 
ment has trod so long, and with such unexampled success. This, they say, is the 
old and safe road to national greatness — to national well-being. The Locofoco 
leaders point to the new path, and declare that to be the right way, heedless of the 
precipice upon the verge of which they tread, and down which it would little disturb 
some of them to see their blinded followers dashing, provided their own selfish enda 
can first be obtained. 

I cannot to-night go into a discussion of the true nature of liberty and law, and 
show how the unlimited prevalence of either works, on the one hand, licentiousness, 
and on the other, tyranny ; that the legitimate province of law is to regulate lib- 
erty ; and that liberty without law would be more destructive to the order and the 
very being of society, more oppressive, cruel, and bloodthirsty, than even law with- 
out liberty. Nor can I now, as I would like, exhibit the tendency of the principles 
of Locofocoism to that state of things in which the salutary restraints of law are as 
threads of twine about the limbs of a sleeping giant. 

I have chosen to-night a different subject; and dry and tedious as I shall be com- 
pelled to be — especially to the fair portion of my audience — I still hope to prove 
not wholly uninteresting even to them. Next to the great moral questions, which, 
as I have said, lie at the bottom of all the others, that of the tariff is, in my opinion*, 
of the deepest importance. I shall, of necessity, be very desultory in my remarks., 
So vast a topic is incapable of being justly and adequately treated in a single 
speech. 

I assert and trust, before I have finished, to be able to prove, that a tariff for the 
pu}^pose of raising revemie, but carefully and skillfully discriminating in the 
articles upon which the duty is laid, and the amount of duty, for the protection 
of American manufactures, while it is a cardinal Whig doctrine, is essential 
to the true prosperity and independence of our great Union. I propose to 
establish this position ; and further, to show that, even if the operation of such a 
tariff, were to permanently increase the prices of the manufactured articles upoa 



344 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

which the duty is imposed, even then it would promote the best interests of lh« 
country, and especially of the cotton-gromiyig South ; and I will then undertake 
to show, what seems so incomprehensible to some of my Democratic friends, that 
the permanent operation of a judiciously discriminating tariff is not to increase 
the price of the manufactured article, but diminish it. 

I will here premise, that I do not think a prohibitory tariff constitutional, nor one 
that will raise a greater amount of revenue than is sufficient to defray the legitimate 
expenses of the Government in conducting its different departments, legislative, 
judicial, and executive, in the support of our nucleus of an army and of our gallant 
little navy, and to pay off that national debt, which a series of Locofoco adminis- 
trations have entailed upon us. I could wish it were otherwise. I desire no surplus 
revenue. Man is not so honest that I would throw temptation in his way. But 
so firmly am I convinced of the policy of protecting our native industry to the 
positive exclusion, if need be, of the foreign manufactured article, that I could 
wish there were a clause in the Constitution authorizing the impost of duties to 
any extent without reference to revenue, even though we enriched the caverns of 
the ocean by casting the proceeds into its unfathomable depths. 

But I do not now contend for any such position, nor do the Whig party. They, 
with their distinguished leader, all now stand on one common platform — that of a 
tariff for revenue, with, however, the amplest protection to American Industry that 
a wise and searching discrimination for that purpose can afford. This is the Whig 
view — this is Mr. Clay's view. The vUtra-protectionists of the North, whose notions 
of the expediency and necessity of the tariff policy led them into the support of a 
prohibitory one ; and those of the Whig party of the South, who had temporarily 
fallen into, or approximated, the error of Free Trade, have both abandoned their 
pernicious extreme, and, side by side with their fellow Whigs, all over the Union, 
are making common cause and presenting an unbroken front. 

How stand our opponents on this important measure ? What is their view of tho 
tariff? What is Mr. Polk's view? 

In this, and other Southern, cotton-gi-owing States, they are in favor of the most 
unqualified free trade ; some of them even go so far as to advocate direct taxation 
and an abolition of all tariffs. They would permit other countries to pour upon us 
their products and their manufactures without let or hindrance, while, at the same 
time, taxing to any extent they please whatever articles they consume from us. 
With the wisdom of the senseless moth, that flings itself into the bright flame, which 
at once attracts and destroys it, these Southern politicians have rushed into the 
fatal error of free trade. Dazzled by a delusive theory, and misled by the demagogical 
clamor of "cotton, cotton, cotton,^'' as if that were the only interest worthy of 
4hought — as if this mighty country grew nothing but cotton, they have waged a war 
of extermination against American manufactures. 

But the absurdities of this ruinous doctrine are such that but few statesmen, even 
of the Democratic party, uphold it. Silas Wright, their great champion in the 
North— to whom they look as the Samson that shall pull down the Whig temple in 
the Empire State — even Silas Wright denounces it as foolish and impracticable. In 
fact, our opponenta are greatly divided on this question. In South Carolina they 
want a horizontal tariff, as they call it ; in the West they want a Judicious tariff, 
with incidental protection ; that is, such protection as is, of necessity, incident to 
every tariff, but without discriminating in favor of our own manufactures. This is, 
63 1 understand, Mr. Polk's view. He is opposed to discrimination, and for letting 



SPEECH ON THE TARIFF. 345 

Ihe manufacture! s take care of themselves. He agrees with the Democrats of this 
State and the Southwest in hostility to protection and the building up of American 
manufactures. These are Mr. Polk's views. He is against protecting American 
labor by a tariff discriminating in its favor. These are his real sentiments, and oa 
this ground he is openly advocated in the South ; on this ground his friends place 
his claims to election. 

But how is it in the manufacturing States ? How is it at the North? How is it in 
the great State of Pensylvania, ribbed as she is with mountains of iron, with all the 
rich ores and minerals bedded in her bosom, or rather thrusting themselves into the 
eye of day, with her deep veins of coal, those mighty forests calcined ages ago, that 
run through her borders, and are the life-blood of her trade and noble industry— 
what says the old key -stone State to this doctrine ? And what do her sister States, 
interested like herself in domestic labor and manufactures— what do New York, 
and New Jersey, and Connecticut, and Massachusetts say to these free-trade, anti- 
protection doctrines of the party here ? Would any honest Democrat, or any Loccfoco 
demagogue, dare to open his mouth in opposition to American manufactures in Pitts- 
burg, or Philadelphia, or Newark ? And yet, is it not known here that one of the most 
audacious political frauds, ever attempted in any country, is now being perpetrated 
theT'6 ? Is it not known that, abused and denounced as are the Whigs here for their 
tariff notions, they are fighting for their lives to keep pace with the Democrats there ? 
That in Pennsylvania Mr. Polk is actually declared to be a better tariff-man than 
Mr. Clay ; while upon their Democratic banners are inscribed, not as it is here, 
" Polk and Tferas"— the light of the " lone star " hardly glimmers in that Northern 
Bky— but everywhere " Polk and Protection," " Polk and the Tariff of '42 !" Mr. 
Clay is anti-tariff, they say, and by this desperate and fraudulent game do they 
hope to carry the great State of Pennsylvania. Will any Democrat of this State 
venture to go there and proclaim his anti-tariff views ? No ! the miserable South 
Carolina free trade doctrine, which is at heart the doctrine of Mr. Polk, is not more 
thoroughly scouted and despised in Pennsylvania by the Whigs than by the Demo- 
crats ; and yet, by playing off a gross fraud upon the popular ignorance and credu- 
lity, it is expected to delude that important State into the support of this very 
doctrine ! 

I have laid down the proposition, that the principle of a protective tariff ig 
essential to our true prosperity and perfect national independence. Before dis- 
cussing this point, let me notice a distinction which exists in the mind of every 
intelligent person familiar at all with the question, but which, in its practical bear- 
ing, is often overlooked ; I mean the distinction between the principle of the tariff— 
the ground on which it is based, the reason why it is beneficial— and the details of any 
particular law levying the duties. The principle is the foundation that upholds the 
details. They may be erroneous, they may even be oppressive, and need the 
correction of wiser legislation, without impairing in tlie least the firmness, or the 
truth, of the political doctrines upon which they are founded. The building may be 
rude and disproportioned, while it rests upon a rock. The architect may be 
unskillful, though his material and base are perfect. No man but a profound and 
experien' cd merchant, or one who has devoted years to the subject, can under- 
Btaud the details of the tariff, and know how they will work. How pitiable, then, it 
is to hear the low demagogues of the Democratic party abusing the tariff and calling 
in question the amount of duly levied on this or that article, wlien the}' do not know 
the names of one half of the thousand articles which form the subject of the tariff 

VOL. II. 15* 



846 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

and upon which it operates ; or the countries whence they come, or the mode of 
their production ; or whether, indeed, they belong to the mineral, vegetable, or 
animal kingdoms I To listen to their strictures reminds one of the sage fly, that, 
perched once upon the dome of St. Paul's, observed some slight defect in the 
•-•vering of the magnificent structure, and immediately, Locofoco-like, commenced 
youring into the ear of a neighboring fly its criticisms upon that glorious work of 
Sir Christopher Wren. I have given some study to this great subject, and while I 
do not pretend to understand it in all its details and practical bearings, I have yet 
Been and know enough to fill me with disgust at hearing such crude objections urged 
against so vast and comprehensive a scheme. 

Without going into details, then, except on one or two points, I shall address 
myself to-night to a discussion of the great principle itself contained in the tariff, 
and upon which its benificent operation depends — and that is, as I have already 
intimated, the protection, the encouragement, and the consequent growth of 
American manufactures. It is too apparent to need arguing, that an impost laid 
upon the foreign ipanufactured article protects the manufacturer of the same in this 
country, just according to the amount of that impost. The operation of the tariff, 
then, is to encourage domestic native skill and industry. It is to strengthen the 
hands and bind up the knees of our infant manufacturing institutions, until they 
have grown to the vigor of manhood ; until they can walk alone in their own power, 
and no longer need assistance. It is known to every one that immense capital is 
required to put manufacturing establishments into effective operation. The build- 
ings necessary for them are useless, except when employed to the end for which 
they were constructed ; the spindles and other machinery, when not busy at their 
appointed task, are helpless, dead capital. England has already her millions upon 
millions of pounds sterling invested in manufactures. Her agriculture is in the 
hands of the few, and the wretched hunger-bitten population of her manufacturing 
districts are glad to get employment at any wages that will keep them from abso- 
lute starvation. Her buildings, too, are erected, her machinery is in order, her 
army of operatives are at their post, vessels freighted with her gold are in our ports 
to buy our raw material ; with these great advantages marshalled in strong array 
against her, what could feeble New England do (I speak now in particular of her first 
manufacturing struggles) what could she do against such odds, with her compara- 
tively meagre capital, without suitable buildings and machinery, while the broad 
fertile fields of the Mississippi Valley, and the rich prairies of the boundless West — 
where the toil of a day will buy an acre of ground— were alluring away her laborers ? 
What, I say, could New England, poor an^ unaided, do in conflict with a rival so 
mighty, and armed with such immense advantages ? What inducements could she 
hold out to capitalists to invest their money in so expensive and uncertain a ven- 
' ture? Is It not known to every person familiar with the subject, that England, for 
the purpose of nipping our manufactures in the bud, has sometimes poured her goods 
into this country at less than the actual cost of making them? that it has been her 
deliberate policy, at whatever temporary sacrifice, to crush our native artisans and 
industrial enterprise, in order to secure the whole market of the Union in her own 
hands? The experience of a few past years has given bitter yet salutary lessons to 
Northern capitalists. In their efforts to compete with foreign capital and foreign 
labor without adequate protection, great fortunes have been lost, incalculable money 
has been sunk, vast pecuniary distress and ruin have been encountered. No one 
doubts now, no one can doubt, it seems to me, that protection is essential to the saft 



SPEECH ON THE TARIFF. 341 

and profitable investment of capital in manufactures, that without protection their 
existence and prosperity are utterly precarious. 

The simple question, then, is at once presented ; Is it for our true, permanent 
welfare, should it be a great national policy, to encourage and sustain American 
manufactures ? Is it desirable to have such institutions in the midst of us ? 

That we have all the natural elements and conditions of a vigorous manufactur- 
ing interest, coextensi re with the Republic, nobody will deny. Within our wide- 
spread territory are produced most of the minerals, and nearly all the vegetable and 
animal substances, used in the mechanic and industrial arts; with so bountiful and 
benignant a hand have they been strewn around us, that they seem, like the very 
finger of Providence, to point out to us the path of national labor and enterprize, in 
which we should walk. There is written on them, in characters plain as day, the 
nature of one grand branch of our work as a people. With such facilities for manu- 
facturing industry, and a demand for its products as universal, incessant, and well- 
nigh as urgent as that for food— for how could we exist without hats, and shoes, and 
wearing-apparel, and household furniture, and a thousand other articles, wrought 
by loom, anvil, or furnace? — with such inducements, I say, shall we encourage our 
native artisans and mechanics, and thus produce within ourselves the fabrics that 
we need? or shall we rather depend for them upon another nation? Shall we be 
in commercial and industrial vassalage to a foreign country, or shall we lock only 
to " God and our native land ?" These are the questions, and what patriotic heart 
does not at once leap with the response? 

I go further ; I take the position that evei-y manufacturer added to the country ia 
a blessing; every agriculturist who turns manufacturer is doubly a blessing. But 
I would not be misunderstood. I do not place the manufacturing above the agri- 
cultural interest. Far from it. I conceive the great, the leading, the upholding 
interest of this country to be agricultural ; and it is the light which manufactures 
reflect upon agriculture, it is the helpful relation which they sustain to this fun- 
damental pursuit, that constitutes their beauty and glory in my eyes. A beauty 
and a glory which the South— aye, the cotton-growing South— have as good rea- 
son to admire as any other section of the Union. Every man, who from an agri- 
culturist becomes a manufacturer, is still a consumer, while he is no longer a pro- 
ducer. He must live; he and his family must still eat; they no longer gather 
from the earth a subsistence, and they must be supplied from the agriculturist who 
does. What man needs to be told, that when the consumers are increased, or 
remain the same, while the producers are diminished, the value of the article pro- 
duced, other things being equal, must increase in a corresponding ratio ? Why, 
there are some 500,000 men, as I learn from the most authentic statistical sources, 
now engaged in manufactures in the United States ; upon an average, I suppose, 
each of these men must have three persons dependent upon him for subsistence, 
making in all about 2,000,000 of people in one way or another dependent upon 
manufactures for their means of support. These are all consumers of the ^ruits 
and productions of the earth, and not producers. They must be supplied by the 
agriculturist, and, to the extent of their need, must increase the demand for bread- 
stuffs and meat, and, of course, their price. 

Suppose, now, that these 2,000,000 of our population, thus engaged in or depend- 
ent upon manufactures, consume, on an average, each fifty dollars worth of bread- 
stuff a year, or between thirteen or fourteen cents a day. That will make 
$100,000,000 worth of grain and breadstuff they will consume annually. To this add 



348 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

twenty-five dollars a year, that they will probably, nay, certainly, average in th« 
consumption of meats — and that will be some seven cents a day — or $50,000,000 
more a year. Thus you have $150,000,000 of food annually consumed by those who 
do not raise a dollar of it. I believe the annual average cotton crop of the United 
States is two millions of bales. At $30 per bale, which all admit is a full price, it 
•will yield $60,000,000 in money ; and yet these despised manufacturers consume, 
of agricultural products used as food, nearly three times as much as the entire con- 
ton crop of the whole South, which raises such an outcry against them, is worth ! 
Yes, even in their infant state, just tottering, as it were, upon their feet, and trembling 
at every breath of popular feeling, lest they be destroyed, these contemned, derided, 
and ignorantly abused manufacturers, actually consume, of the labor of the planter, 
of the toil and stock of the farmer, nearly thrice the value of the whole cotton crop of 
the United States ! Why, one would have supposed, from the manner in which the 
demagogues and narrow-minded politicians of the South boast themselves of their 
cotton, that that constituted the whole and sole production of the country ! But I 
shall come to that presently. 

Suppose, now, fellow-citizens, that by destroying American manufactures — and 
the destruction of a proper tariff of discrimination, as I have shown you, would 
inevitably tend to such a result — suppose now that these 2,000,000 of persons, thus 
dependent on that branch of our national industry, were thrown out of employment ; 
they are not like the impoverished and stricken workmen of England, thereby 
exposed to starvation. No ! thanks to that benevolent Providence which has given 
us such a noble country to inhabit and enjoy, the wide and teeming and free earth 
is all before them where to choose. Agriculture lifts her beckoning hand, and with 
cheerful smile and welcome voice, invites them to partake of her bounties. They, 
in their turn, become producers. But what must be the effect upon the fruits of 
agriculture ? Where is the market for the $150,000,000 worth of provisions that they 
consumed ? The cotton planter may sell his 2,000,000 bales of cotton, and receive 
his $60,000,000, because England must of necessity take it, until she has provided the 
means of cultivating it herself. But the farmer, the grain-grower, the stock-raiser, 
and all the other varied representatives of agriculture, where will they receive the 
$150,000,000 which their own folly and blind zeal have destroyed ? 

Suppose there were in the country no manufactories at all; what then would 
the farmer do ? Why, the very shoes, hats, clothes that he wears, the axe with 
which he fells the forest, the spade and shovel with which he delves into the ground, 
the plough wherewith he traces the furrow into which the " l)are grain " is 
dropped, to be changed by the prolific earth into " the full corn in the ear^'' aU 
are the work of the manufacturer ; will he do without these, and hundreds of other 
articles, now so closely interwoven with our convenience, our comfort, and all the 
necessaries of life that, for this very reason, we are quite unconscious of the heavy 
debt we owe them ; will he dispense with these things, or will he look to a foreign 
land for them ? 

What a spectacle would this Union present, if we were nothing but an agricultu- 
ral people ; if all the efforts, energies, and entei-prise ofthis mighty nation were turned 
alone to the cultivation of the soil ! Why, we should be a huge and naked giant ; 
powerful, but unwieldly and blind. We should be at the mercy of the rest of the 
world, half barbarians, and held in vassalage by every manufacturing country far 
and near. This, it is true, \a. an extreme case, and yet it is fair to present it ; for 
as you approximate such a condition by the destruction of manufactures, so the 



SPEECH ON THE TARIFF. 349 

results I have described must inevitably follow. Were we, on the other hand, 
devoted exclusively to manufactures, a nation of Cyclops, and working only in forgea 
and factories, the general effect, though different in form, would be equally disas- 
trous. Gaunt faraine would, ever and anon, press upon us with its heavy hand, 
while nakedness, hunger, and misery would, sooner or later, be the common portion 
of the laboring classes. Is there nothing in the recent history of the manufacturing 
districts of Great Britain to throw light on this subject? To be sure, such an extreme 
state of things can never happen in this country. Land is too abundant and too free ; 
and as we have no law of primogeniture, wealth, upon the death of any great land- 
holder or property owner, becomes scattered along a thousand channels of inheri- 
tance and distribution, enriching the whole population through Which it passes. 
Agriculture will always afford an outlet and escape from the excess of manufactures ; 
while such is the fortunate condition to which, as I trust, we are happily coming, 
that manufactures will always regulate agricultui'e. [Here Mr. P. gave one of his 
grand images in illustration of the sisterly relations between Agriculture, Manufac- 
tures, and Commerce ; but it could not be reported.] 

Who, then, fellow-citizens, who that loves his country and desires to see her 
"proudly eminent " among the nations of the earth, is willing to strike a fatal blow 
to that great manufacturing intei'est, which is so vitally connected with her highest 
prosperity, strength, and glory? 

" But how," exclaims your selfish and narrow-minded politician, who is blind 
alike to the interests and to theglory of his country, " how is the South, whose cotton 
js?io^ eaten, to reap any advantage from those things you have described?" I will 
show you directly. But let me first ask. Is there nothing in this great Union but 
the South ? Is cotton the only product of our wide-spread land ? The South ! the 
South! is always in the mouth of the Southern demagogue, as if no other section 
of the Repi'blic was to be thought of or cared for. The South, fellow-citizens, is a 
part of the Union, it is the part in which I live and which I love ; but it is not all 
the Union ! And if the great mass of my countrymen enjoy inestimable blessings, 
as the fruit of a specific public policy, which yet operates somewhat less favorably 
upon the South, I have heart enough to rejoice in the highest good of the whole, 
assured that no part can be without its share, if not the largest share, of the benefit. 
But too much stress is laid in the South, even by good and candid men, upon the 
principal staple of their own section, and its claims in the legislation of the coun- 
try. It is not generally known what relation it bears to other productions. I hold 
in my hand a work, which is in itself of high character and repute, but which, upon 
this question of the tariff, will be esteemed by my political opponents as of the 
utmost weight. It is llunVs 3Ierchants^ Jfdgasine. It contains statistical tables, 
compiled principally from the census of 1840, which exhibit the annual productions 
of the agricultural labor of the United States. You will be surprised to learn how 
some of tliem rank with that of which you have heard so much. Of the article of 
wheat, raised in the United States, there were 100,000,000 bushels. I am not 
familiar with the price of wheat, but if there is any practical merchant in the audi- 
ence who can tell us, we shall be able to come at its value. (A voice, 80 cents). 
Well ; at 80 cents, the crop would be worth $80,000,000 ; nearly one-third more 
than the whole cotton crop of the United States. Of oats, there are raised in the 
Union, ,000,000 bushels, which, at 15 cents, is worth 

Of hay, ,000,000 tons, worth $120,000,000, double the value of the whole cotton 
crop. And here, too, ia a subject in which the fair portion of my audience are 



350 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

Interested. By tlie labor of the hands of our thrifty countrywomen, in the manufac 
ture of the single article of milk into butter, cheese, &c,, a sum of $30,000,000 is 
realized, equal to one-half the price of the whole crop of cotton. And 80 I might 
continue through the entire list of agricultural productions, the value of which 
In the aggregate is more than a score times as great as that of our own vaunted 
staple. For I have not spoken of rice, of tobacco, of sugar, of hemp, of rye, 
and a host of minor articles, which yet are extensively used, and in the mass highly 
valuable. All these productions are fostered, encouraged, increased, and find a 
market, and a home market, very much through the operation of the tariff. And 
shall we then not retain a system, fraught with such benign results ? 

But I proposed to show that even the cotton-planter is benefited by a protective 
policy in the increased consumption of, and consequently the increased demand for, 
his staple. Under the operation of the present tariff, where before the noise of the 
shuttle and the busy hum of employment had been silenced, renewed and successful 
attempts have been made to open manufactories. During the past year, as I am 
informed (I speak in round numbers, and should I be inaccurate it does not affect 
the validity of my argument), during the past year our American manufactories 
consumed over 400,000 bales of cotton. This year it is but fair to presume that they 
will use 500,000 bales, which is one-fourth of the entire crop, and for which, as 
experience shows and facts demonstrate, the Southern planter is sure of a better 
price than he will get abroad. For there is along our own shores a system of free- 
trade, which I glory in, which from the mouth of the Sabine to the mouth of the St. 
Croix, presents a seacoast of some 4,000 miles in length, open to American sailors, 
and to them only. That is the sort of free trade I go for. Now I say, the Southern 
planter sells his 500,000 bales to the Northern manufacturers at a better price than 
he could get abroad. They can afford to give more. They buy it without a duty. 
The English manufacturer pays a duty. Here, then, is a certain demand for one- 
fourth of the whole crop of the South in a free-trade market, unhampered by cus- 
tom-house restrictions, unimpeded by tax or impost of any kind. This home-market 
Is the legitimate fruit of a wise tariff. But this is not all. England is a manufac- 
turing country. For ages her capital and her resources, to a great extent, have 
been invested in this kind of industry. Her buildings, and her machinery, and her 
starving population, cannot be idle. Government dare not, for its existence, permit 
It. Manufacture she must. And if one market fails, she will force open another. 
She will compel some half-barbarous nation, like the Chinese, incapable of defence 
or resistance, to take her cutlery and her calicoes, and thus find a vent for the labor 
of her population. Let this country manufacture as it may, and largely as it may, 
it will not materially diminish the manufactures of England. She must work up her 
accustomed portion ; so much cotton she will have, whatever it cost : thus, by the 
operation of a protective tariff, increasing the home consumption, England herself 
becomes a still better market to the Southern planter. And is this not fruit worth 
gathering ? 

But I promised to prove also, what to many of my Democratic friends is a great 
stumbling-block, that the effect of the tariff is eventually to diminish the price of 
the manufactured article, or, at least, not to raise it, even though, at first, a tempo- 
rary rise may appear to be, and really be, the result. And here I will answer what 
is a difficulty with many. They think and say, that the levy of an impost must 
*dd so much to the price of the article. That the tax must fall wholly on the con- 
luraer. '^^'^ is not so ; and that it is not so will be at once apparent, by the 



SPEECH ON THE TARIFF. 351 

reflection that the consumer is not obliged^ in the great majority of cases, tc bujj 
while the manufacturer, to keep up his business, is obliged to sell. He must sell, 
and make the smaller profit. So the loss would, at least, be shared. If all things 
remained as they were, the tax would, no doubt, fall on the consumer. But things 
do not remain the sam«. The very object of the tariff is that they shall not. Imme- 
diately our own manufactories are at work, and capital gets fairly invested in them, 
they must go on ; others, however, have also sprung up ; competition takes place, 
and with competition, its invariable accompaniment, a reduction in price, until, in 
a space of time scarcely credible, the article is manufactured in this country at 
rates fully as low as prevailed before the tariff; frequently lower. The history of 
the various tariff laws and their operation proves this beyond cavil or denial; and 
the very result is thus effected which seems so surprising. The matter may at once be 
illustrated by an example near home. Suppose but one steamboat running between 
this city and New Orleans, and that there was no other medium of travel or trans- 
portation ; suppose, to use the favorite word, this boat had a " vionopoly " of the 
trade, and charged enormous prices for freight and travel. Now suppose one of your 
citizens were to say, " I will build a boat in opposition to this ' monopolist,' if you will 
give me at first higher prices to justify my investment of the capital. I will enter 
into the trade, compete with the present boat, and force her to reduce her fare ; 
and then, when my capital is once fairly invested in the boat, and the business 
begins to prosper, I can and will reduce my charges until we both fall to reasonable 
rates, or are forced to do so by other boats still coming into the trade." Would not 
this reasoning be just, and is it not daily exemplified and acted on by sensible men 
around you ? And yet such is the simple and natural effect of the tariff, when it 
gets into full, and fair, and permanent operation. ^ 

But there is another objection against the tariff, though found generally only in 
the mouth of the partisan demagogue ; it is, that the manufacturers are making 
money by it. That some of them have realized twenty per cent, on their invest- 
ments ; that it is " a monopoly " in their hands ; and that, therefore, the legislation 
of the country operates partially for them. Before I combat the truth of this 
objection, I must express my deep contempt for the source from which it generally 
emanates. It is one of those low and miserable attempts to array the poorer 
classes against the rich, which I never see without sentiments of abhorrence. It ia 
the emanation of a base envy which denominates every man, who by industry, and 
skill, and talent, has accumulated a little reputation and property, an aristocrat ; 
which looks upon wealth legitimately engaged in commerce or other employment, aa 
a "monopoly," and, appealing to the vilest passions of men, would array society 
against itself, to the utter destruction both of society and of government. Society 
must consist of all the varied relations and interests of life. All its members are 
vitally related to each other, and to the whole body. Every one is bound to con- 
iribute his modicum of intelligence, morals, industry, and enterprise to the general 
Block. The minutest particles of the twig which I hold in my hand, are held closely 
together by an inevitable law of cohesion. Every particle of matter in the universe, 
by a similar law pervading nature, is attracted to this twig, and it in turn to them ; 
and when I thus let it fall, true to its instincts, it seeks the body which, being largest, 
attracts it most powerfully. So ought society to be framed. There should be no 
jarring elements nor discordant parts. There need be none. Government should 
be one beautiful and harmonious whole, where each might pursue, unmolested of the 
other, his own interests. In this, our free and broad land, there are no distinc* 



352 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

tions in society except what men may make f«r themselves. Stephen Girard, a 
poor French boy, landed in Philadelphia, without friends and without means, and 
yet, in a few years, had accumulated an immense fortune. John Jacob Aster, with 
his millions of dollars, now tottering upon the verge of the grave, commenced life 
a penniless adventurer. In a few years where will be his imraense fortune ? Scat- 
tered into a hundred hands, distributed in fertilizing rills throughout the whole 
country ; perhaps not accomplishing a single wish of its accumulator, yet fulfilling 
its inevitable destiny of enriching and benefiting the entire body. The rich man 
of to-day is the poor man of to-morrow, and the reverse. Wealth in its continu- 
ance is uncertain, and held by the frailest tenure. He, then, fellow-citizens, is 
your bitterest enemy who would incite you against the rich man ; he is himself a 
victim of the worst of passions. There are, there can be, no permanent monopolies 
in this country. Wealth here, like water, will seek its level. Wherever capital 
finds a safe and lucrative investment, it will be made. That this is so, is shown in 
the fact that Maryland is largely engaged in manufactures. Virginia, North Caro- 
lina, Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Kentucky, and Missouri, are all 
turning their attention in that direction. It has been stated that slave-labor is besi 
fitted for manufactures ; the slaves are more docile, more under control, more uni- 
form, will work longer, and are less expensive. Should these calculations and 
expectations prove true, we will no longer hear the cry of monopoly or against 
protection. But the South, as it is now, have no right to say one word on that 
subject ; labor, in proportion to capital invested, yields a far handsomer revenue 
in the South than in any other part of the Union. From statistical tables now 
before me, contained in Hunt's Merchant's Magazine, it is shown, that while the 
average return from labor in the New England States is about -84, in Mississippi it 
is 1-69, twice as much as the average of New England, and greater than in any 
State of the Union except Louisiana, whose commercial facilities through New Orleans 
bring it slightly above the estimate for Mississippi. We, then, are the real mono- 
polists, if monopoly exist anywhere. We produce a staple that Nature has said 
shall not grow north of our latitude, and it yields us double what our manufactui-ing 
brethren obtain. We should be for ever silenced on that subject, then. 

But, it is said, the effect of a protective tariff is to ruin our commerce ; I have 
incidentally shown already it will have a contrary effect. At the worst, it would 
change the character, not the extent, of our commerce. Perhaps we might not 
send so many ships abroad, our intercourse with foreign nations, when we become 
independent of them in our productions, might not be so great. There would be no 
need of it. We will have all the heart can wish, all the patriot could desire, of our 
own production, the growth or manufacture of our own land. But, as I have 
already remarked, let our internal resources be developed, and with some 4,000 
miles of coast, with half a dozen Mediterraneans as large as that which divides 
Europe from Africa, with our mighty rivers, that at once fertilize and opeQ channels 
of intercourse and access through the whole land, we have ample verge and scope 
enough for all our vessels. We might turn one-half of our forests into ships, one- 
half our population into sailors, whiten our coasts, lakes, and seas with sails, and yet 
not give entire development to our commercial resources. But I cannot now pi'esa 
this subject further. 

He who could succeed in establishing free trade as the policy of this country, or 
in overthrowing the tariff system, and destroying our American manufactures, 
would be entitled to receive from the English Government the highest pension in 



SPEECH OX THE TARIFF. 353 

their gift. If their constitution and laws permitted it, there is no dukedomor earl- 
ship to which Sir Robert Peel might not justly elevate him. Yes, feUow-citizens, if 
the orators of the Democratic party could persuade us, by their plausible sophis- 
tries, that free trade is the true policy of this country, England would rejoice to her 
very core. I bid you, then. Democrats and Whigs, beware of their arguments 
and of their arts. Think not because the liquid in the cup seems fair and pure that 
it is wholesome drink. Even if they tell you it is the red and bubbling wine, dash 
it down ; there is poison in it, and all the more deadly from the tempting gmse it 
wears. 

And here, before I close, let me touch upon another view of this great question, in 
which the South is most deeply interested. Those among us who are opposed to the 
protection of American manufactures, know that the result is decidedly beneficial to 
England, to Germany, and to France— but more especially to England, who is by 
far the largest consumer of our cotton. And yet who more awake than these 
Southern anti-tarifiF politicians to the interference of England on the subject of the 
Annexation of Texas ? It is strange they are not equally alive to danger here. Do 
they think that England, who at an enormous sacrifice abolished her own system of 
servitude, who has passed prohibitory laws against the introduction into her terri- 
tory of slave-made sugar, and who has, through her ministers and p;irliament, 
almost taken oath that she will not rest from her labors till slavery ceases to exist— 
do they think that England, so determined, so powerful, and with such resources, 
will take of you your slave-grown cotton any longer than she is obliged to do so? 
She cannot now do without it : but do you not know that she has nearly turned the 
world upside down in her efforts to raise cotton by a system of free labor ? And 
when you reflect how broad a belt of land encircles the earth in which cotton will 
grow and thrive, and that but a few years ago hardly a bale was grown in the 
United States, is there such entire certainty that she may not ultimately suceeed? 
Shall w«, then, be dependent upon England for our market, or upon ourselves ? 
Shall we, in the matter of slavery, find her, or the North, our best friend? For 
myself, I would rather look at home than abroad. Our Northern brethren, howevsr 
opposed they are to slavery— fanatics though some of them may be on the subject- 
have yet sworn, both Whigs and Democrats, to maintain faithfully the Constitution 
of the country, by which slavery is protected— that Constitution which is at once 
our surety and our shield. I would rather trust our Northern brethren, whose fore- 
fathers and ours fought the battles of the Revolution side by side, while their 
mothers and oar own together wrung their hands over the desolations of the 
country, or bound up the wounds of the injured, or administered consolation to the 
dying— I would rather trust the sons of our conjoint sires, from whose wisdom we 
have derived our noble constitution of Government, and in which they feel a pride 
equal to our own. In the North, too, many of us have mothers, sisters, and bro- 
thers, who love U3 and regard us as part of themselves ; I would rather trust 
them. ***** 

There is one more subject upon which I had designed to say a few words. I refer 
to the Annexation of Texas ; but time forbids — (cries of " Go on," " Go on.") The 
evening is now far advanced, and most of you, especially the ladies, are, doubtless, 
weary. On some future occasion, I will discuss the subject referred to before either 
of the associations in the city. I returned 3'ou my thanks for the patient and con- 
siderate attention you have paid me, during my long address, and I only regret you 
have not been more fully compensated 



854 MEMOIR OF S. S. PHENTISS. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

Decision of the Supreme Court of the U. S. involving his Title to the Vicksburg Com- 
mons — Letters — Removal to New Orlejins — Public Dinners tendered him on leav- 
ing Mississippi — His Settlement in New Orleans — Withdrawal from Parties and 
Devotion to his Profession— His Legal Career — Anecdotes — Trial of Phelps, the 
Robber — His Character and Attainments as a Lawyer and Advocate. 

^T. 36. 1845. 

The year 1845 was a very eventful one to Mr. Prentiss. 
In January a suit involving his title to the Vicksburg 
*' Commons," and which had been several years pending in 
the Supreme Court of the United States, was decided 
against him. Thus, at a single blow, the pecuniary rewards 
of his professional life were snatched from him, and he was 
left worse than penniless. All the rest of his days he was 
heavily embarrassed by old debts — " floundering," to use 
his own expression, " like a fish in a net." He had built 
extensively on his Commons property, expending in a block 
of stores, a large hotel, and other improvements, according 
to the estimate of Mr. Smedes, not less than one hundred and 
fifty thousand dollars ; all this passed out of his possession 
by the above decision. In communicating to him this judg- 
ment, under date of Washington City, July 19th, his friend, 
Mr. Crittenden, writes : 

I was really so cast down and overwhelmed by the decision of 
the Supreme Court, on the day before yesterday, in your Vicks- 
burg case, that I had no heart to inform you of the result. And 
but for the necessity of the case, I would not now say a word on 



DECISION OF THE U. S. SUPREME COURT AGAINST HIM. 355 

the subject. The Court (the Chief Justice and McKinley dis- 
senting) has decided that the daughters of the testator, Vick, 
have an equal interest with the sons in the two acre tract of 
land reserved, or designated, in the will, as the site of the town. 
The decree below is reversed, the demurrer overruled, and the 
cause remanded for further proceedings. 

Such a thing, I believe, has never been granted, but my deter- 
mination now is to apply for a re-hearing. You may expect soon 
to hear from me again. I am in no mood to write more at 
present.* 

He thus refers to this decision in a letter to his elder 
brother : 

I sympathize with you most sincerely in your difficulties, and 
would gladly aid you in auy manner in my power. I fear, how 
ever, that my name would be of little service ; for I do not now 
consider myself as solvent. In fact, I am entirely used up, and 
do not expect my property to liquidate my debts. There has 
been, recently, a decision in the Supreme Court of the United 
States, which has thrown the whole town of Vicksburg (all ray 
property included) into litigation. I do not fear the final result ; 
but it will take a long time to bring the suit ton conclusion, and 
in the meanwhile no one will buy, or take in payment, property 
so situated. The consequence has been, that the largest portion 
of my property, including the hotel, has been sacrificed, under 
execution, for comparatively nothing. I hope still to be able 
to work out even, if I can realize some debts due me. In 
deed, I shall be very well satisfied to begin the world anew, pro- 
vided I can begin free from my old debts. I suppose you are 
aware I am going to remove to New Orleans in the autumn. I 
have made all my arrangements for that purpose, and have the 
utmost confidence in my professional success. 

A few extracts from his correspondence, will show that 



* The decision will be found in Howard's Rep. of Sup. Court of V. S., vol. ill., p. 
464. It was ruled by four judges ; Mr. Justice Story being absent, and Judge Nel- 
«on not having yet taken his seat on the bench. — Ed. 



356 • MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

this misfortune had no power to dampen his courage. He 
recommenced the battle of life with as much confidence as he 
first entered it. Never were his letters more hopeful ; never 
did they overflow with kindlier or more joyous affections. 

TO ni8 MOTHER. 

Belmont, Jan. 19, 1845. 

Mt Dear Mother: — 

On l^ew Year's day, I was on a steamboat all day, 
with Mary and the children, coming up from Natchez, where 
they had all been on a visit. We did not get home till the next 
morning, and then I had to go out to Jackson to attend court, 
where I have been detained ever since. Thus I missed the 
opportunity of writing you on ll^ew Year's day, as has been my 
custom, and as I wished to do; but both Mary and I thought 
much of you, and all the dear ones around you ; we talked of 
you, and from the bottom of our hearts wished you a " happy 
New Year." Nor did little Jeanie forget her " damma Pren- 
tiss''' (as she calls it). She loves you as much as she does her 
mother or me, and every day pays her respects to your portrait, 
and tells all strangers who it is. I would not write from Jack- 
son, for I preferred writing my New Year's letter from home, 
with the dear ones around me, and joining in aifectionate regard. 
I came home yesterday and found them all well and happy, and 
right glad to see me ; and that made me happy too ; and as I 
look at them, I think of another beloved family, not less dear, 
but far, far distant; each one of whom I wish may ever be as 
joyful as I am this Sunday night, with my wife and children 
smiling beside me. 

And how has the last year gone with you, my dearest mother ? 
I trust it has dealt kindly with your health, and pressed lightly 
upon your dear head. It surely has not been barren of inte- 
resting events, and our little family circle can make up quite a 
chronicle from its records. Let us see : brother G. has entered 
upon his high calling, and is now a teacher of good. Three 
grandsons have been born, to grow up and call you blessed. 



LETTERS. 351 

And were it not for the illness of dear Abby, the past year 
would be one of pleasant remembrances ; but I trust that cause 
of sorrow will be removed, and her health fully restored. The 
next winter she must come and spend with us; we were greatly 
disappointed in not having her the present. How does Anna 
bear her maternal honors ? I have no doubt she will do finely ; 
there is nothing like practice in such matters. I expect Master 
Seargent Prentiss S. is a very fine boy, and will make a good and 
great man, and add much honor to the name his mother so 
kindly gave him. My own little George Lewis is as fine a 
fellow as you would see in a week's travel. His mother thinks 
she sees in him already an incipient minister, though certainly 
it is not from his gravity she judges, for he laughs and crows 
continually. He is, however, very good, and seldom cries. 
And now, my dearest mother, good-bye. Mary joins me in 
love to all, and in prayer tliat your days may be prolonged until 
our little boy shall become a man, and feel as proud in being 
your grandson as I do in being 

Your affectionate and devoted son, 

Seargent. 

Here is an extract from a letter to his younger sister, 
written shortly before : 

We are overjoyed by receipt of Mr. S.'s letter, announcing 
the arrival of the little stranger. I congratulate you, my dear 
sister, from tlie bottom of my heart, upon your safe passage 
through this terrible strait, and for this great addition to your 
sources of happiness. I cannot conceive a greater blessing to a 
young wife than the birth of a fine, healthy child. Now the 
whole circle of your duties and enjoyments is complete. I pity 
those who have no children, They know nothing of the best 
objects of human existence and exertion. And so you have 
fastened to him my ugly name. I feel much flattered at this 
mark of your affection, and trust that it will not prove a name 
of evil omen. Perhaps he will make it distinguished, and 
rescue it from the oblivion to which it seemed destined. Dear 
Utile fellow, I would give anything to see him. So soon as you 



358 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

are able to write you must give us a full and complete "account 
of him — the color of his eyes, liair, whom he looks like, whether 
he is good-natured, or cross, after the manner of his namesake. 
Give him his uncle's kiss and blessing. 



TO HIS YOUNGEST BROTnEE. 

ViCKSBCRO, Jan. 22, 1845. 

Dear George : — 

I am several letters in arrear to you, for which I 
know your good nature would excuse me, if you knew how 
much I have been engaged for the last six weeks or two months. 
"We got your letter .of the 7th on yesterda}', and were delighted 
to hear you have received a call at New Bedtord. It seems to 
me to be a very flattering one, and the salary quite tolerable 
for New England. I know nothing of the place, except that it 
is a whaling one, and one in which the good people let their 
lights shine, and do not hide them under a bushel. I presume 
you have decided the matter long before this. At all events, 
I congratulate you, my dear brother, upon the favorable pros- 
pects with which you are entering upon your profession. I con- 
sider your success assured, both in a worldy as well as a religious 
point of view. If you settle at New Bedford, I shall be delighted 
to come and see you, and teach some of those trout^ what you 
will teach your parishioners, the evils of giving way to the bait 
of the tempter. I am very busy in trying to wind up my affairs, 
preparatory to my removal to New Orleans. I succeed, how- 
ever, but slowly, and fear I shall have to go with incumbrances 
upon my shoulders. My property seems to be useless in the pay- 
ment of debts, and as I have no lamp of Aladdin, some of my 
debts will have to wait a little ray convenience. However, I 
have no fear of my success in New Orleans. I am determined 
to go next fall, at any sacrifice of my affairs here. I consider 
this State as disgraced and degraded, and I have sworn that I 
will not bring up my children within reach of its infamous doc- 
trines. We are all in excellent health. Mary works in the gar- 



LETTERS. * 359 

den every day, and Jeanie helps her, with more zeal than 
knowledge. Your namesake increases rapidly in grace and sta- 
ture, and already looks, at least in liis mother's estimation, like a 
young parson. My own health has improved. It has not been 
better for two years. We shall look with impatience for your 
next letter. 

Your affectionate brother, 

Seargent. 



TO THE SAME. 

ViCKSBDRQ, March 7, 1845. 

Dear George : — 

Mary wrote two or three days since, but as we 
are all going down to Natchez to-day, I will also drop a line. 
We are going to Longwood, and shall make a visit of eight or 
ten days. Mary and the children are in excellent health ; indeed, 
I never saw such strong and healthy cliildren in my life. Mas- 
ter George is a perfect little Hercules, and I have no doubt, 
will achieve as many labors as that worthy ever did. Their 
minds, too, seem to expand as rapidly as their bodies, and Jeanie 
already requires a regular system of education. We are delighted 
at your acceptance of the call to New Bedford. The place of 
itself must be pleasant, and I fancy, too, the good people of 
New Bedford are very agreeable folks, open-hearted, and gene- 
rous : they smack of the ocean. I shall not forget, when I 
come to see you, to examine into those fishing privileges, to which 
you allude ; especially the trout stream^ which, however, I fear 
will hardly bear comparison with the famous old '' Great 
Brook," the most classic stream, in my opinion, in North 
America. 

April, 21, 

* ♦ * * I guppo?e you are now at N. Bedford, setting 
your house in order. How I should love to drop in upon you, 
and laugh at the inexperience of two such beginners, enlighten- 
ing you perhaps the while, with the result of my own experi- 
ence in the deep mysteries of housekeeping. 



360 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

I wish much you were near enough to pay us a bridal 
visit. Bebiiont is now the very place for passing a honey- 
moon. Millions of flowers are breaking the very backs of 
the breezes with heavy loads of fragrance; thousands of birds 
are singing love to each other, and building nests under 
our very noses, and last, but not least, Jeanie is continually 
flying about like a butterfly among the flowers, while " gen- 
tle Geordie " crows in imitation, or defiance of every bird's note 
he hears. Oh ! we should be so happy if you were with us. 
"We are waiting anxiously for a full account of the wedding, and 
hope in a week to hear from you. Mary and the children are 
well. I am busy studying Civil Law, and preparing . myself for 
New Orleans. I have met with much difficulty and annoyance, 
in closing up my business here, and do not expect to save any- 
thing from the wreck. Indeed, I shall be satisfied to get out of 
the State as rich as I got into it. I only regret I did not go to 
Kew Orleans three or four years ago. Yicksburg is becoming 
every day more distasteful to me, and were it not for Belmont, I 
would not stay hero this summer. Again, my dear brother, 
God bless you and dear sister L., and make your union as happy, 
as anticipation has ever painted it. 

Yery affectionately your brother, 

Seaegent. 



TO HIS MOTHEE. 

ViCKSBURG, Sept. 26, 1845. 

My Dear Mother: — 

I start to-day for New Orleans to make my final 
arrangements for removing. From New Orleans I shall go up 
to Alexandria, which is on Eed River, in Louisiana, to attend 
the Supreme Court. I expect to get back here about the middle 
c " October. We shall then pack up immediately and be off. 
^''ary, with the children and her mother, go down with me as 
i .r as Natchez, where they will stay till I return. I shall be 
right glad when the moving is all over, I assure you, and we get 
once more comfortably settled. I am delighted with the move, 



LETTERS. 361 

and only regret that I did not make it six or eight years ago. 
My prospects in New Orleans are excellent, and all my friends 
encourage me in the belief that I shall do better there, in my 
profession, than I have ever done in Mississippi. I go under 
great advantages. I am as vrell known there as I am here, 
and have in the city a great many warm friends. Indeed, I 
have no fear whatever of the result. "We have been expecting 
a letter from Abby with great anxiety, but have not received 
one for several weeks. I am anxious for her to get here before 
we leave Belmont, and regret exceedingly that I could not go 
on for her. My business here, however, has been such, in 
winding up my affairs, that it was impossible for me to leave. 
I hope Abby has found some of our friends whom she could 
accompany, and is already on the way. As soon as I return 
from Alexandria, if necessary, I will come up to Cincinnati or 
Pittsburg, and meet her. Mary and the little ones are dying to 
see her. Jeanie talks a great deal about Aunt Abby, and we are 
all truly dehghted at the prospect of having her with us all win- 
ter. I am certain she will pass a pleasant winter, and return, I . 
trust, with her health fully restored. We would give anything 
in the world if you were coming too. The family all join me in 
love and kind remembrances. Remember me to all our friends, 
and believe me, ever and truly, my dearest mother, 

Your affectionate son, 

Seaegent. 



TO THE SAME . 

New Oklbans, Kov. 10, 1845. 

My Deae Mothee: — 

We have been in New Orleans a week, and are 
now fairly settled down in our own house, and begin to feel as 
if we were at home. We have a very comfortable house, in iL 
delightful situation, and are all quite pleased with our mov^'" 
We had to stay two or three days at the hotel ; but we all wenk^ 
to work immediately, putting up furniture, and laying d/^wu car- 
pets. You would have laughed to see me sitting on oue tit^rr, 

VOL. II. 16 



362 MEMOIR OP S. S. PRENTISS. 

and sewing away at the carpets, with Mary and Abby. A. was 

of great service, and did as much or more than any of us ; so 

yon may judge how her health has improved. You can't tell 

how delighted we are to have her with us. Tlie children are 

already as fond of her as they are of me, and " Aunt Abby " 

seems so necessary a part of the family that I don't see how we 

shall be able to part with her next spring. But the best of 

all is, her health has improved so wonderfully that you would 

hardly know her. She has scarcely any cough, and walks a mile 

or two through the city without fatigue. She says she can 

hardly realize the rapid and favorable change. Indeed, she 

improved all the way on her route, notwithstanding the fatigue 

and exposure of travelling. Now that we are settled down, and 

she can get a little rest, she will improve still more rapidly. 

The only regret I feel about her being here is, that you are left so 

lonely. If you were only with us, my dear mother, how happy 

we should all be. But you must make Anna come and pay you 

some long visits during the winter. The children have both been 

sick. We thought, at first, they had the scarlet fever. Geordie has 

entirely recovered, and is now heartier, if possible, than ever. 

Jeanie has had a cold, and is still sufi'ering from the attack, 

but I think she will get over it in a few days. Abby is going to 

send you a letter to-day, so I will stop. Ali join in love and kind 

remembrances. 

Your affectionate son, 

Seaegent. 

It was not until after mature deliberation that he decided 
to select Xew Orleans as his future home. During the win- 
ter of 1843-4, around his fireside, the subject was often talked 
of, and the advantages of different cities canvassed. New- 
York and Baltimore were the principal competitors with 
New Orleans ; but many considerations, professional and 
domestic, seemed to point to the Cresent City, notwithstand- 
ing his going there w^ould involve the vast labor of master- 
ing, and the peculiar difficulty of practising, an entirely new 
system of law. " It was," to borrow the language of one 



HIS REMOVAL TO NEW ORLEANS. 363 

of his most accomplished and admiring friends, " it was a 
hazardous undertaking ; many well-earned reputations had 
been wrecked in this great city. A new system of law had 
to be mastered ; it was not hke moving from one common 
law State to another ; but it was passing into a jurisdiction 
where the laws of Rone held sway, and the imperial sceptre 
still had power."* 

His determination to leave Mississippi excited deep regret 
throughout the State, and on the eve of his departure, his 
old friends and neighbors at Yicksburg, " anxious to testify 
their regard for him personally, and to seal that friendship 
which, through many years, had known no change, except 
continual increase, earnestly requested him to partake with 
them of a Social Dinner." 

More than a year before, he had received the following 
communication from Natchez : 

Natchez, JuIt/ 15, 1844. 

To Hon. S. S. Peextiss. 

SiE : — The imdersigned, having heard, with deep 
regret, of your determination to withdraw from this State, 
which you have so long adorned by the splendor of your elo- 
quence, and seek a residence in some more propitious soil, 
undefiled by the foul heresy of Repudiation, cannot permit you 
to depart without such a manifestation of their feelings as will 
most strongly evince their high personal regard, and their pro- 
found admiration of those distinguished abilities which have so 
often, and with such signal success, been exerted in behalf of the 
great principles for which we are all contending. 

Usage indicates one of sundry modes by which a community 
may do honor to an eminent citizen, whose brilliant career has 
illustrated their country ; and that mode the undersigned will 

* J. W. Frost, Esq. He has since fallen a victim to duelling. He was for some 
time editor of the iV. 0. Crescent, and a gentleman of fine social and literary cul- 
ture. He was a native of Maine. His death was one of the saddest fruits that the 
murderous custom which caused it has ever brought forth, even in the Southwest, 



864 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

adopt by asking yon to partake of a Public Dinner, on a day 
most convenient to yourself, which we pray you will designate. 

This very flattering invitation was signed by a large num- 
ber of the most prominent citizens of Adams county. 
Appended to it were such names as James C. Wilkins, Ste- 
phen Duncan, George Winchester, Adam L. Bingaman, and 
many others, not unknown throughout the Union. 

In a letter, dated Natchez, September 15th, 1845, the 
invitation is thus renewed : 

Your friends here, anxious to testify their warm personal 
regard, as well as to evince their admiration for those great 
abilities, which you have so conspicuously and so efficaciously 
exerted, in the eflbrt to strangle the monster Repudiation, and 
at the same time, to arrest the political perversity, which, in its 
overwhelming course, threatens to demolish all moral and con- 
stitutional restraint, ask you to partake with them a Public 
Dinner, to be given in the city of Natchez, on a day to be fixed 
by you, prior to your departure. 

He had been in New Orleans but a few weeks, when he 
writes : " I have already considerable business, although it 
has not yet ripened into fees. My friends predict for me 
much greater success than I choose to believe in ; but, at 
all events, I am glad that I am out of Mississippi, and only 
regret that I did not come here ten years ago. I shall quit 
politics entirely, and devote myself to my profession." 

His removal to Louisiana was regarded by his friends 
throughout the country with great interest, and most hearty 
good wishes, not without friendly counsels, followed him 
thither. " And now that you are fairly settled in New 
Orleans," Mr. Crittenden writes to him early in 1846, 
"you are to be regarded as a man of business, I suppose, 
devoted to your causes and your briefs. I hope that it may 



HIS REMOVAL TO NEW ORLEANS. 365. 

be so, and that all the temptations of New Orleans may 
have no power over you. You have a noble career before 
you there ; if you but run it with all diligence and 
industry." 

Another old friend, whose opinion of his abilities was only 
exceeded by personal regard for him, writes thus : 

I cannot express to you how much I rejoice in your final 
establishment at New Orleans, and in the flattering prospects of 
your success there. I am delighted, too, with your motto. You 
will not think me impertinent if I add that justice equally to 
yourself, your position, and your profession, seems to demand 
that, for the next ten years, if God spares your life, you should 
be a scholar as well as a lawyer. Of course, I use the word in 
the most comprehensive sense, as including the studies which 
form the philosophic jurist and statesman, not less than those 
which form the man of taste and intellectual accomphshments. 
Daniel Webster, I am told, amid the heaviest pressure of official 
and professional engagera.ents, has always been in the habit of 
devoting a portion of his time to the reading of the ancient and 
modern classics ; especially to a frequent perusal and reperusal 
of such authors as Lord Bacon, Hooker, and Burke. And he is, 
doubtless, quite as much indebted to the profound wisdom he 
has imbibed from these kingly intellects, as to his own massive 
genius, for his fame as a lawyer and statesman. With your vast 
fund of experience already treasured up — the best a;nd readiest 
interpreter of all book-knowledge — and with your unrivalled 
gifts, I really do not see what is to prevent your becoming, if 
you will, the deepest, the ablest, as well as the smartest^ lawyer 
in the land. May God bless you ! 

During the next two years Mr. Prentiss devoted himself 
with unwearied assiduity to the labors of his profession, and 
especially to a thorough mastery of the Civil Law. He took 
no part in political affairs, and seemed wholly absorbed in 
the care of his family, in extricating himself from his pecu- 



366 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

niary embarrassments, and laying the foundations of an 
honorable legal career in the Southwestern metropolis. 
Removed from the scene of former party contests, and no 
longer harassed by the spectre of Repudiation, his political 
feelings were greatly softened ; he came to look upon Demo- 
crats with a more charitable eye, and though steadfast in his 
old principles, he was less and less disposed to consider the 
Whig party as immaculate, or the opposite party as wholly 
corrupt. His removal to Louisiana had a very happy effect, 
too, in enlarging the sphere of his social and literary inter- 
course, and also in creating, or renewing, many friendly, 
genial ties and kindly associations with New England. No 
small portion of the eminent merchants and professional men 
of New Orleans, like himself, were from the North, and 
still bound to it by a thousand tender recollections, as well 
as by the sacred affections of family and kindred. 

And here it may not be out of place to dwell a little upon 
his character and attainments as a lawyer. It is matter of 
deep regret that the records of his legal career are so 
meagre and unsatisfactory. An accurate report of his prin- 
cipal speeches in the Federal and State Courts of Missis- 
sippi and Louisiana, would be a very valuable contribution 
to the forensic eloquence and literature of the country. 
Some of the criminal cases in which he was engaged were 
full of wild, romantic interest, and afforded a fine opportu- 
nity for the exercise of his varied gifts. His civil practice, 
too, embraced several suits, which were among the heaviest 
of a private nature ever tried before an American tribunal. 
But not a single case, that I am aware of, was ever fully 
reported. The only relic of his forensic oratory is his 
address at the Wilkinson Trial. The published portion of 
his speech on the Mississippi Contested Election, however, 
may be considered as a pretty fair specimen of his legal 



LEGAL ANECDOTES. 361 

acumen and dialectic skill. But he has left nothing behind 
him which completely exhibits what his admirers regarded 
as the peculiar excellence of his best efforts at the bar — the 
singular combination of logical power and clearness with 
intense passion, wit, learning, pathos, and a vivid, all- 
informing imagination. 

The remainder of this chapter will aim to depict him as a 
lawyer, in as faithful colors as the scanty materials permit. 

At the bar (Mr. Smedes writes), your brother was essen- 
tially in his element. He rejoiced in the keen encounter of wits, 
the excited logical contests, the rapid shifting of scenes in the 
drama of the trial, the conflict of mind with mind in all the 
varied forms in which it occurs in the Nisi Prius Courts. In 
this field of legal strife, where the readiness in the use of the 
■weapon, and its sharpness and weight, are the surest guarantees 
of success, he stood proudly eminent. One who never heard 
him at the bar and before a jury, could form no idea of the 
powers and resources of his intellect. No turn in his case, no 
adduction of proof adverse, no unfortunate denoument on his own 
side, ever discomposed him ; they only stimulated him to renewed 
effort ; he rose with the emergency, and always greater than it. 
His readiness and self-possession were, indeed, wonderful, and 
never left him. He was once defending an action of ejectment 
in the Circuit Court of Washington County, for a tract of land. 
Mr. N. D. Coleman, the counsel for the plaintiff, had disclosed 
his case to the jury, when " Old Belcher," as he is called, a 
famous hunter, living in the swamps of Deer Creek, who hap- 
pened to be on the jury, cried out, " Thafs a good title ; I go 
for plaintiff.'''' Your brother, with his fine smile lighting up his 
face, says, " Wait a minute, Belcher ; wait till you have heard 
my side." "Well," said Belcher, falHng back, "1^1 wait." 
Mr. Peextiss finished his proof, and, turning to Belcher, says, 
" What do you think of that ?" " That's a good title^ too^'^ says 
Belcher ; " IHl go with the majority .'" 

In 1837, when he thought his fortune made, he retired from 



368 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

the practice, aud very rarely came to the Court House. In the 
■winter of 1838-9, when Judge Guion and myself were practising 
law together, we had a case of slander for the defence. It was 
the first suit of the kind I had ever known brought in the 
Court, and the only one, to my knowledge, ever brought in it. 
People here settle tlieir slander suits in another court. George 
S. Yerger, Esq., one of the first lawyers in the State, was on the 
other side, and Judge Guion was absent. I felt unequal to the 
task of defending the suit alone, and when I found the presiding 
judge would not lay it over, I wrote your brother a note, telling 
him how I was situated : that Mr. Yerger had that morning 
been specially retained on the other side, and asking him to 
come up and help me. He had never heard of the case before ; 
but, with that kindliness with which he then overflowed, and 
which, had he possessed the mines of Peru, would have, in the 
end, left his pocket-book empty, he came at once to my aid. 
"When he reached the court-room, the jury were empanelled, and 
a witness on the stand. It was a cold day, in the month of 
December; the plaintifl? was present in court, clad in a white 
linsey (woollen) jacket ; the defendant was present also. The 
case was " E. Jones v. Wm. C. Doss ;" it afterwards went to the 
High Court, and is reported in 3 How. Miss. Bep. under the stylo 
of "Doss X. Jones;" but it went up on law points alone. The 
proof was simple of the speaking of the slanderous words — to 
"wit, "that the plaintiff was a thief, and had stolen a flitch of bacon ; 
and that the plaintiff owned some land and some negroes." This 
was the whole case, and on this slight foundation your brother 
built an argument of wit, sarcasm, ridicule, and eloquent decla- 
mation, that I believe even he never surpassed. The man wh© 
brought the suit, although it was one of our coldest winter days, 
sweat until his white woollen coat looked as if it had been 
dipped in the river. Our client, after the trial was ended, 
declared that he never paid five hundred dollars more willingly, 
that being the sum into which the jury mulcted him. You will, 
perhaps, wonderingly ask, how could any man make a briUiant 
speech, irresistibly comic, terrible in denunciation, and eloquent 
in thought and word, on such a topic ? In endeavoring to recall 



HIS LEGAL CHARACTER. 369 

the outline of it, I find myself incapable of doing him anything 
like justice, and shall not make the attempt. But I recollect 
well the picture he drew of the class of men who bring slander 
suits; cowards, who dare not vindicate themselves; character- 
less, and who seek at the hands of a jury what by a life of honest 
industry, had they led it, they might have built up for them- 
selves ; men of an evil eye, and who look covetously on their 
neighbors' negroes. His account, too, of what constitutes repu- 
tation and character ; the traits of the true man of honor ; his 
delineation of the high-toned gentleman— these, and other sali- 
ent points of the speech, I shall never forget. 

Mr. Peentiss was exceedingly scrupulous in caring for and 
vindicating the rights of his clients. But he was not less 
regardful of his own, and maintained tliem, as against his clients, 
with equal determination. On the trial of the case of Owen P. 

against Redding B. Herring, involving an amount of about 

twenty-five hundred dollars, and in which the plaintiflTs right to 
recover anything was very doubtful, Mr. 0. was present, and 
while your brother was examining a witness, came forward, and, 
without speaking to Mr. P., or indicating his intention to him, 
addressed a question to tlie witness as to some fact pertaining to 
the case. Your brother rose, and looking at his client, said, 

" Mr. Owen P. C , am I managing this case, or are you ? 

If you are, sir, I will abandon it at once. If I am, allow me to 
continue it without your interference." The look and manner 
in which this was said, in the hearing of the whole court and 

jury, wer« overwhelming; Mr. shrunk back with an 

apology, and was as mute as a mouse the rest of the trial, which 
resulted in a large verdict for him, on what I thought, most 
questionable grounds. But it was next to impossible for a jury 
to resist your brother at that day (1837) ; he would argue with 
them, joke with them, drive them by his indignant and wither- 
ing denunciations, or lead them captive with his eloquence. 
Those he was severest upon were always the most eager to get 
his services on their side when they again became involved in 
litigation. 

yoL. II. 16* 



3Y0 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

The following passages from an article * in tlie United 
States Law Magazine for May, 1852, appear to me to indi- 
cate, with much discrimination, the main elements of his 
legal character : 

I come now to speak of him as a lawyer. 

He was more widely known as a politician than a lawyer, as 
an advocate than a jurist. This was because politics form a 
wider and more conspicuous theatre than the bar, and because 
the mass of men are better judges of oratory than of law. That 
he was a man of wonderful versatility and varied accomplish- 
ments, is most true ; that he was a popular orator of the first 
class, is also true ; and that all of his faculties did not often, if 
ever, find employment in his profession, may be true likewise. 
So far he appeared to better advantage in a deliberative assembly 
or before the people, that there he had a wider range, and sub- 
jects of a more general interest, and was not fettered by rules 
and precedents ; his genius expanded over a larger area, and 
exercised his powers in greater variety and number. Moreover, 
a stump speech is rarely made chiefly for conviction and persua- 
sion, but to gratify and delight the auditors, and to raise the 
character of the speaker. Imagery, anecdote, ornament, elo- 
quence and elocution, are in better taste than in a speech at the 
bar, where the chief and only legitimate aim is to convince and 
instruct. 

It will always be a mooted point among Peentiss's admirers 
as to where his strength really lay. My own opinion is that it 
was as a jurist that he mostly excelled ; that it consisted in 
hiowing and heing ahle to show to others what was the law. I state 

* It was written by J. G. Baldwin, Esq., now of San Francisco, and has since been 
reprinted in The Flush Times of Alabama and Mississippi. The whole sketch 
13 very spirited, though inaccurate in several particulars, and based chiefly upon a 
knowledge of Mr. Prentiss during the "flush times" of 1836-S. It is marked 
by such an admiring and friendly temper, that, had the author's acquaintance with 
Mr. P. been longer and more intimate, some expressions in it, I cannot doubt, 
would have been considerably modified, while others would have been entirely 
spared. 



HIS LEGAL CHARACTER. 3tl 

the opinion with some diffidence, and, did it rest on my own judg- 
ment alone, should not hazard it at all. But the eminent Chief- 
Justice of the High Court of Errors and Appeals of Mississippi, 
thought that Prentiss appeared to most advantage before that 
Court; and a distinguished judge of the Supreme Court of 
Alabama, who had heard him before the Chancellor of Missis- 
sippi, expressed to me the oi)iDion that his talents shone most 
conspicuously in that forum. These were men who could be 
misled from a fair judgment of a legal argument by mere ora- 
tory, about as readily as old Playfair could have been turned from 
a true criticism upon a mathematical treatise, by its being bur- 
nished over with extracts from Fourth-of-July harangues. Had 
brilliant declamation been his only or chief faculty, there were 
plenty of his competitors at the bar, who, by their learning and 
powers of argument, would have knocked the spangles off from 
him, and sent his cases whirling out of court, to the astonish- 
ment of hapless chents who had trusted to such fragile help in 
times of trial. 

As an advocate, Mr. Peentiss attained a wider celebrity than 
as a jurist- Indeed, he was more formidable in this than in any 
other department of his profession. Before the Supreme, or 
Chancery, or Circuit Court, upon the law of the case, inferior 
abilities might set off, against greater native powers, superior 
application and research ; or the precedents might overpower 
him ; or the learning and judgment of the bench might come in 
aid of the right, even when more feebly defended than assailed. 
But what protection had mediocrity, or even second-rate talent, 
against the influences of excitement and fascination, let loose 
before a mercurial jury, at least as easily impressed through 
their passions as their reason ? The boldness of his attacks, his 
iron nerve, his adroitness, his power of debate, the overpowering 
fire (broadside after broadside) which he poured into the assail- 
able points of his adversary, his facility and plainness of illus- 
tration, and his talent of adapting himself to every mind and 
character he addressed, rendered him, on all debatable issues, 
next to irresistible. To give him the conclusion was nearly the 
same thing as to give him the verdict. 



372 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

In the examination of witnesses he was thought particularly 
to excel. He wasted no time by irrelevant questions. He seemed 
to weigh every question before he put it, and see clearly its 
bearing upon every part of the case. The facts were brought 
out in natural and simple order. He examined as few witnesses, 
and elicited as few facts, as he could safely get along with. Ir 
this way he avoided the danger of discrepancy, and kept his mind 
undiverted from the turning propositions in the case. The jury 
were left unwearied and unconfused, and saw, before the argu- 
ment, the bearing of the testimony. 

He avoided, too, the miserable error into which so many- 
lawyers fall, of making every possible point in a case, and press- 
ing all with equal force and confidence, thereby prejudicing the 
mind of the court, and making the jury believe that the trial of 
a cause is but running a jockey race. 

He chose rather to reserve in his own favor even doubtful 
points, when he believed he could get along without serious dan- 
ger, thus securing the case against reversal if he gained it, and 
securing the chance of reversal if he lost it. 

In arguing a cause of much public interest, he got all the benefit 
of the sympathy and feeling of the bystanders. He would 
sometimes turn towards them in an impassioned appeal, as if 
looking for a larger audience than court and jury ; and the 
excitement of the outsiders, especially in criminal cases, was 
thrown with great effect into the jury-box. 

Mr. Peextiss was never thrown off his guard, or seemingly 
taken by surprise. He kept his temper ; or, if he got furious, 
there was " method in his madness." 

He had a faculty in speaking I never knew possessed by any 
other person. He seemed to speak without any effort of the 
will. There seemed to be no governing or guiding power to the 
particular faculty called into exercise. It worked on, and its 
treasures flowed spontaneously. There was no air of thought — 
no elevation, frowning, or knitting of the brows — no fixing up 
of the countenance — no pauses to collect or arrange his thoughts. 
All seemed natural and unpremeditated. No one ever felt 
uneasy lest he might fall ; in his most brilliant flights, " the 



HIS LEGAL CHARACTER. 3*13 

empyrean lieights" into which he soared seemed to be his natu- 
ral element — as the upper air the eagle's. 

Among the most powerful of his jury efibrts, were his 
speeches against Bird for the murder of Cameron ; and against 
Phelps, the notorious highway-robber and murderer. Both were 
convicted. The former owed his conviction, as General Foote, 
who defended him with great zeal and ability, thought, to the 
transcendent eloquence of Peentiss. He was justly convicted, 
however, as his confession, afterwards made, proved. Phelps 
was one of the most daring and desperate of ruffians. He fronted 
his prosecutor and the court, not only with composure, but with 
scornful and malignant defiance. When Prentiss rose to speak, 
and for some time afterwards, the criminal scowled upon him 
a look of hate and insolence. But when the orator, kindhng 
with his subject, turned upon him, and poured down a stream 
of burning invective, like lava, upon him ; when he depicted the 
villainy and barbarity of his bloody atrocities ; when he pictured, 
in dark and dismal colors, the fate which awaited him, and the 
awful judgment to be pronounced at another bar, upon his 
crimes, when he should be confronted with his innocent victims; 
when h43 fixed his gaze of concentrated power upon him, the 
strong man's face relaxed ; his eyes faltered and fell ; until, at 
length, unable to bear up longer, half-convicted, he hid his head 
beneath the bar, and exhibited a picture of ruffian-audacity 
cowed beneath the spell of true courage and triumphant genius. 
Though convicted, he was not hung. He broke jail, and resisted 
re-capture so desperately, that, although he was incumbered 
with his fetters, his pursuers had to kill him in self-defence, or 
permit his escape.* 

♦ The cases of Bird and Phelps occurred in the earlier part of Mr. Prentiss' legal 
career, and were, I believe, the only ones involving life, in which he ever appeared as 
prosecutor. He probably did it, in the present instances, in obedience to a strong 
feeling pervading the mind of the community that the defendants were guilty, and 
that, in the case of Phelps especially, conviction was of vital importance to the 
public safety. In later years he refused to appear as prosecutor in capital cases, 
and often expressed himself very decidedly against the practice. 

A report of Phelps' trial was published at the time by Gen. Foote ; but I have not 
been able to obtain a copy. He was tried for shooting a man in cold blood, in the 
vicinity of Vicksburg, It was early in the morning, and the man was in the act of 



3T4 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

Mv. P. was employed only in important cases, and generally 
as associate counsel, and was thereby relieved of much of the 
preliminary preparation which occupies so much of the time of 
the attorney in getting a case ripe for trial. In the Supreme 
and Chancery Courts he had, of course, only to examine the 
record and prepare his argument. On the circuit, his labors 
were much more arduous. The important criminal and civil 
causes which he argued, necessarily required consultations with 
clients, the preparation of pleadings and proofs, either under his 
supervision, or by his advice and direction ; and this, from the 
number and difficulty of the cases, must have consumed time and 
required application and industry. 



lifting his little boy on horseback, when Phelps, who had concealed himself near 
by, took deliberate aim and killed him. The wadding of the ball was recovered. A 
torn fly-leaf— part of an old song, if I remember rightly— was also found in the 
murderer's pocket. On being compared, these two pieces of paper exactly 
matched. Upon this circumstantial evidence his conviction chiefly turned. Such 
is the version of the story, as I have heard it. 

Mr. Prentiss once gave me a most interesting account of this vulgar Rob Roy 
of the Southwest, as he called him. Phelps (whether that was his real name I do 
not know) was a model of physical symmetry. His shoulders, arms, and hands are 
said to have been perfect. His strength was Herculean. He might have sat, indeed, 
for the statue of a Grecian athlete, or a Roman gladiator. Shortly after his con- 
viction, he sent for Mr. Prentiss, begging him to come to the prison. Mr. P. did so. 
In the course of the interview, Phelps told him that he had formed the purpose of 
escaping during the progress of the trial. His plan was twofold ; first, to leap upon 
his prosecutor — who, aside from his lameness, had the look of a mere boy — kill him, 
and then, amidst the confusion, secure his own flight. He was, probably, deterred 
from attempting to execute this fine scheme by reading in the eye and bearing of the 
youthful orator unmistakable signs, that such an attempt would prove an ignomi- 
nious failure. When he had disclosed his plan, Mr. Prentiss quietly remarked, ** 1 
saw it all ; but I was prepared for you." 

After the trial, the ruSian's murderous purpose* towards his prosecutor 
changed into a feeling of strange confidence and respect. His main object, 
apparently, in soliciting the interview, was to unbosom himself, by making known 
the particulars of his private history. And there, in that lonely dungeon, feelings 
gushed forth from his robber-heart, of whose existence, probably, no one had 
dreamed before. The memory of his boyhood seemed to revive; and with it a 
thousand tender and sacred recollections. He said that he had been born to a very 
different career. He was from New England, and his family still occupied a posi- 
tion there of the highest respectability. He had a pious mother, and had been 
trained to virtue and goodness. His last wish was that his relatives might never 
hear of hia crimes or his infamous death. — Ed. 



HIS LEGAL CHARACTER. 3T5 

His faculty of concentration drew his energies, as through a 
lens, upon the subject before hira. No matter what he was 
engaged in, his intellect was in ceaseless play and motion. Alik* 
comprehensive and systematic in the arrangement of his thoughts, 
he reproduced without difficulty what he had once conceived. 

Probably something would have still been wanting to explain 
his celerity of preparation for his causes, had not partial nature ' 
gifted him with the lawyer's highest talent, the acumen which, 
like an instinct, enabled him to see the points wliich the record 
presented. His genius for generalizing' saved him, in a moment, 
the labor of a long and tedious reflection upon, and collation of, 
the several parts of a narrative. He read with great rapidity ; 
glancing his eyes through a page, he caught the substance of its 
contents at a view. His analysis, too, was wonderful. The 
chemist does not reduce the contents of his alembic to their ele- 
ments more rapidly or surely than he resolved the most compli- 
cated facts into primary principles. 

His statements — like those of all great lawyers — were clear, 
perspicuous, and compact ; the language simple and sententious. 
Considered in the most technical sense, as forensic arguments 
merely, no one will deny that his speeches were admirable and 
able efforts. If the professional reader will turn to the meagre 
reports of his arguments in the cases of Boss v. Vertne?^ 5 How. 
305 ; VicJc et al. v. The Mayor and Aldermen of VicJcslmrg, 1 
How. 381 ; and The Planters^ BanTc v. Snodgrass et al., he will, 
I think, concur in this opinion. 

Anecdotes are not wanting to show that even in the Supreme 
Court he argued some cases of great importance, without know- 
ing anything about them till the argument was commenced. 
One of these savors of the ludicrous. Mr. Pkextiss was retained, 

as associate counsel, with Mr. (now Gen.) M , at that time 

one of the most promising, as now one of the most distinguished, 
lawyers in the State. During the session of the Supreme Court, 
at which the case was to come on, Mr. M called Mr. P.'s at- 
tention to the case, and proposed examining the record together; 
but for some reason this was deferred for some time. At last 
it was agreed to examine into the case the night before th« 



3td 



MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 



day set for the hearing. At the appointed time, Prentiss 

could not be found, Mr. M was in great perplexity. The 

case was of great importance ; there were able opposing counsel, 
and his client and himself liad trusted greatly to Mr. P.'s assist- 
ance. Prentiss appeared in the court-room when the case was 
called up. The junior counsel opened the case, reading slowly 
from the record all that was necessary to give a clear perception 
of its merits ; and made the points, and read the authorities he 
had collected. The counsel on the other side replied. Mr. P. 
rose to rejoin. The junior could scarcely conceal his apprehen- 
sions. But there was no cloud on the brow of -the speaker ; the 
consciousness of his power and of approaching victory sat on his 
face. He commenced, as he always did, by stating clearly the 
case, and the questions raised by the facts. He proceeded to 
establish the propositions he contended for, by their reasons, by 
authorities, and by collateral analogies, and to illustrate them 
from his copious resources of comparison. He took up, one by 
one, the arguments on the other side, and showed their fallacy ; 
he examined the authorities relied upon, in the order in which 
they were introduced, and showed their inapplicability, and the 
distinction between the facts of the cases reported, and those of 
the case at bar ; then returning to the authorities of his colleague, 
he showed how clearly, in apphcation and principle, they sup- 
ported his own argument. When he sat down, his colleague 
declared that Prentiss had taught him more of the case than he 
had gathered from his own researches and reflection. 

His addresses at the bar, like those before the popular 
assembly, were hardly less distinguished by the felicity with 
which he wrought into them the sentiments and thoughts of 
others, than for the originality and beauty of his own. His 
poetical quotations were particularly apt, and, as he intro- 
duced them, produced, oftentimes, all the effect of a pointed 
argument. The following may serve as an instance : 

Mr. Prentiss was engaged in a case, involving the question of 
" devisavit vel non^'''' that is, the validity of a will. A gentleman 



HIS LEGAL CHARACTER. 3t1 

of wealth, residing in Mississippi, bad, when young, become 
deeply attached to a young lady who, Hke himself, was a native 
of Virginia, where both then resided. The affection was not 
reciprocated, and she married another. The disappointed lover 
emigrated to Mississippi, and became an inebriate, and after the 
lapse of some years, died — attesting, even in liis last moments, 
and after a long separation, his undying affection for the object 
of his hopeless attachment, by bequeathing to her his wliole 
estate. She had, in the meantime, become a widow, and was 
indigent. She accepted the bequest, but his relations contested 
it, alleging that intemperance had destroyed the mind of their 
deceased kinsman, and tliat he was, therefore, incapable of 
making a valid will. Here was a theme and occasion, which 
Prentiss improved by a speech of unrivalled eloquence. But 
I will, as I intended, refer only to one portion of it, illustrative 
of that quality of his mind which I have been describing: his 
power of imparting to a sentiment new value and beauty, by 
his mode of applying it. He said, that at the approach of death, 
the mind often would cast off the clouds by which it had been 
long obscured, and the heart, however perverted by intempe- 
rance, would suddenly recover its former purity. So, doubtless, 
in the last moments of tliis unhappy man's life, a remembrance 
of his early love iiad shone across the dreary lapse of his after 
years, and the image of that first loved and never forgotten 
one, rising above all intermediate objects, had recalled the fond 
hopes of his youth; and that, under these vivid influences, he had 
striven to redeem the errors of his life, by an act of noble gene- 
rosity. Thus dying, 

" like the dolphin, whom each pang imbues 



With a new color, as it gasps away, 

The last still loveliest, till — 'tis gone — and all is grey." 

The jnry found a verdict against the heirs, and, of course, in 
favor of the legatee, who lives yet, I believe, to enjoy the fruits 
of the disinterested attachment wliich slie had inspired, but 
never rewarded. On this occasion, as well as on the trial of the 
case involving the title to the Yicksburg " Commons," Mr. P. 



378 MEMOIR OF S, S. PRENTISS. 

was opposed by the celebrated Joseph Holt (since removed to 
Kentucky), who afterwards remarked to the writer, that " Pben- 
Tiss was the only man he ever met whose performance was equal 
to his reputation." 

Mr. Pekntiss' success before juries cannot be more strikingly 
exemplified than by the following anecdote : 

He was engaged in a cause pending in a Circuit Court east of 
Pearl Eiver, where juries are usually composed of men who 
sliape their verdict in their own language, leaving to the court 
the irksome task of moulding them into a legal form. On this 
occasion, the jury were so captivated with Mr. P.'s eloquence 
and humor, that they confounded Mm with the defendant, whom 
he represented, and brouglit in their verdict in these words — 
"We, the jury, finds for lawyer Peentiss, and plaintiff to pay 
the costs," — which of course unsettled the gravity of the court, 
bar, and audience, as it has done that of all who have heard it 
related since.* 

In the administration of law in the interior counties and 
backwoods of the State, the comical element mingled very 
largely, and, unfortunately, not always in so harmless a way 
as this.f 



* Jno. M. Chilton, Esq. 

t Mr. Baldwin, in giving his legal reminiscences, touches upon this subject in a 
very amusing style. A few passages deserve to be quoted, as throwing light upon 
certain phases of Southwestern jurisprudence twenty years ago. 

" Those were jolly times. Imagine thirty or forty young men collected together 
in a new country, armed with fresh licenses which they had got gratuitously, and a 
plentiful stock of brass which they had got in the natural way ; and standing ready 
to supply any distressed citizen who wanted law, with their wares counterfeiting 
the article. I must confess it looked something like a swindle. It was doing busi- 
ness on the wooden nutmeg, or rather the patent brass-clock principle. There was 
one consolation : the clients were generally as sham as the counsellors. For the 
most part, they were either broke or in a rapid decline. They usually paid us the 
compliment of retaining us, but they usually retained the fee too, a double retainer 
we did not much fancy. However, we got as much as we were entitled to and some- 
thing over, videlicet, as much over as we got at all. The most that we made was 
experience. AVe learned before long, how every possible sort of case could be sue. 
cessfully lost- there was no way of getting out of court that we had not tested. 



LAW IX THE IXTERIOR. 3*19 

This chapter upon Mr. Preutiss' legal career cannot be 
more fitly closed than by the following admirable analysis. 



The last way we learned was via a verdict : it was a considerable triumph to get 
to a jury, though it seemed a sufficiently easy matter to get away from one again. 
But the perils of the road from the writ to an issue or issues — for there were gene- 
rally several of them — were great indeed. The way was infested and ambushed, 
with all imaginable points of practice, quirks and quibbles, that had strayed ofif from 
the litigation of every sort of foreign judicature — that had been successfully tried in, 
or been driven out of, regularly organized forums, besides a smart sprinkling of 
indigenous growth. Nothing was settled. Chaos had come again, or rather, had 
never gone away. Order, Heaven's first law, seemed unwilling to remain where 
there was no other law to keep it company. I spoke of the thirty or forty barristers 
on their first legs— but I omitted to speak of the older members who had had the 
advantage of several years' practice and experience. These were the leaders on 
the Circuit. They had the law — that is, the practice and rulings of the courts — and 
kept it as a close monopoly. The earliest information we got of it was when some 
precious dogma was drawn out on us with fatal effect. They had conned the sta- 
tutes for the last fifteen years, which were inaccessible to us, and we occasionally, 
much to our astonishment, got the benefit of instruction in a clause or two of ' the 
act in such cases made and provided ' at a considerable tuition fee to be paid by 
our clients. Occasionally, too, a repealed statute was revived for our especial 
benefit. The courts being forbidden to charge except as specially asked, took away 
from us, in a great measure, the protection of the natural guardians of our ignorant 
innocence : there could be no prayer for general relief, and we did not — many of 
us — know how to pray specially, and always ran great risk of prejudicing our cases 
before the jury, by having instructions refused. It w as better to trust to the ' unco- 
venanted mercies' of the jury, and risk a decision on the honesty of the thing, than 
blunder along after charges. As to reserving points, except as a bluff or scare- 
crow, that was a thing unheard of: the Supreme Court was a perfect terra incoQ' 
nita : we had all heard there was such a place, as we had heard of Heaven's Chan- 
cery, to which the Accusing Spirit took up Uncle Toby's oath, but we as little knew 
the way there, and as little expected to go there. Out of one thousand cases, butch- 
ered in cold blood without and with the forms of law, not one in that first year's 
practice, ever got to the High Court of Errors and Appeals (or, as Pkestiss called 
it, the Court of High Errors and Appeals). No wonder we never started. How 
could we ever get them there ? If we had to run a gauntlet of technicalities and 
quibbles to get a judgment on ' a plain note of hand,' in the Circuit Court, Tam 
O'Shanter's race through the witches, would be nothing to the journey to and 
through the Supreme Court ! It would have been a writ of error indeed— or rather 
a writ of many errors. This is but speculation, however— we never tried it — the 
experiment was too much even for our brass. The leaders were a good deal but 
not generally retained. The reason was, they wanted the money, or like PalstalTs 
mercer, good security; a most uncomfortable requisition with the mass of our liti- 
gants. We, of the local bar, trusted — so did our clients : it is hard to say which 
did the wildest credit business. 

" The leaders were sharp fellows — keen as briars — au fait in all trap points- 
quick to discern small errors — perfect in forms and ceremonies — very pharisees ia 



380 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

It is from the peu of Edward Payson, Esq., for many years 
a member of the Mississippi bar : 

' anise, mint, and cummin — but neglecting Judgment and the weightier ^natters 
of the law.' They seemed to think that judicature was a tan-yard — clients skina 
to be curried — the court the mill, and the thing ' to work on their leather ' with— 
bark : the idea that justice had anything to do with trying causes, or sense had 
anything to do with legal principles, never seemed to occur to them once, as a pos- 
sible conception. 

" Those were quashing times, and they were the out-quas?dngest set of fellows 
ever known. They moved to quash everything, from a venire to a subpoena: 
indeed, I knew one of them to quash the whole court, on the ground that the Board 
of Police was bound by law to furnish the building for holding the Court, and there 
was no proof that the building in which the court was sitting was so furnished. 
They usually, however, commenced at the capias — and kept quashing on until 
they got to the forthcoming bond which*, being set aside, released the security for 
the debt, and then, generally, it was no use to quash anything more. In one court, 
forthcoming bonds, to the amount of some hundred thousands of dollars, were 
quashed, because the execution was written ' State of Mississippi' instead of ' the 
State of Mississippi,' the constitution requiring the style of process to be the State 
of Mississippi ; a quashing process which vindicated the constitution at the expense 
of the foreign creditors in the matter of these bonds, almost as effectively as a sub- 
sequent vindication in respect of other bonds, about which more clamor was 
raised. 

" Attachments were much resorted to, there being about that time, as the pres- 
sure was coming on, a lively stampede to Texas. It became the interest of the 
debtors and their securities, and of rival creditors, to quash these, and quashed 
they were, almost without exception. J. H. was sheriff of W., and used to keep a 
book in which he noted the disposition of the cases called on the docket. Opposite 
nearly every attachment case, was the brief annotation — ' quashed for the lack of 
form.' This fatality surprised me at first, as the statute declared the attachment 
law should be liberally construed, and gave a form, and the act required only the 
substantial requisites of the form to be observed ; but it seems the form given for 
the bond in the statute, varied materially from the requirements of the statute in 
other portions of the act ; and so the circuit courts held the forms to be a sort of 
legislative gull trap, by following which the creditor lost his debt. 

" This ingenious turn for quibbling derived great assistance and many occasions 
of exercise, from the manner in which business had been done, and the character 
of the ofiBcials who did it, or rather who didn't do it. The justice of the peace, pro- 
bate judges, and clerks, and sheriffs, were not unfrequently in a state of as unso- 
phisticated ignorance of conventionalities as could be desired by J. J. Rousseau, or 
any other eulogist of the savage state. They were all elected by the people, who 
neither knew nor cared whether they were qualified or not. If they were ' good 
fellows,' and wanted the office, that is, were too poor and lazy to support them- 
selves in any other way, that was enough. If poor John Rogers, with nine small 
children and one at the breast, had been in Mississippi instead of Smithfield, he 
could have got any office he wanted, that is, if he had quit preaching and taken to 
treating. The result of these official blunders was, that about every other thing 



HIS CHARACTER AS A LAWi'ER. 381 

V 

Wkstbrook, Me., March 24, 1855. 

Your favor of 19th inst. is received, and I hasten to comply 
with your request that 1 should give you my impressions 
of your brother as a lawyer and advocate, only regretting 
that I cannot send you something which would be at once a 
more worthy tribute to his memory, and a more effectual service 

to you. 

Without, then, attempting an elaborate analysis of his charac- 
ter, or aiming at anything like rhetorical sequence, but putting 
down my thoughts in the order they present themselves, I should 
sav, first of all, that the secret of his brilliant success, not only 
as an advocate and a lawyer, but as a popular orator and a 
forensic debater, is not to be looked for in any one or two ele- 
ments belonging to him, but in an extraordinary assemblage of 
both moral and intellectual gifts, most fortunately and harmoni- 
ously blended together. And should I attempt to distinguish 
between these two classes, where both existed in such perfec- 
tion, I should unhesitatingly award the precedence to that first 
named. Confessedly transcendent as were his strictly intellectual 
endowments, he held them, to a considerable extent, in common 



done at all, was done wrong ; indeed, the only question was as between void and 
voidable. Even in capital cases, the convictions were worth nothing— the record 
not showing enough to satisfy the High Court that the prisoner was tried in the 
county, or at the place required by law, or that the grand jury were freeholders, 
&c., of the county where the offence was committed, or that they had found a bill. 
They had put an old negro, Cupid, in C county, in question for his life, and con- 
victed him three times, but the conviction never would stick. The last time the 
jury brought him in guilty, he was very composedly eating an apple. The sheriff 
asked him how he liked the idea of being hung. ' Hung,' said he—' hung ! You 
don't think they are going to hang me, do you? I don't mind these little circuit 
judges; wait till old ShurJcey says the word in the High Court, and then it will be 
time enough to be getting ready.' 

" But if quashing was the general order of the day, it was the special order when 
the State docket was taken up. Such quashing of indictments ! It seemed as by 
a curious display of skill in missing, the pleader never could get an indictment to 
hold water. I recollect S., who was prosecuting pro tern, for the State, convicted a 
poo'» iadian of murder, the Indian having only counsel volunteering on his arraign- 
ment; S. turned around and said with emphatic complacency: ' I tell you, gentle- 
men, there is a fatality attending my indictments.' 'Yes,' rejoined B., ' they are 
generally quashed.' " 



382 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

with others ; but his moral and emotional organization, con- 
structed as it was on tlie most exquisite and liberal scale, very 
few have ever lield in common with him. To this he was 
indebted very largely for his success, and this it was that in a 
peculiar sense, not only set him far out beyond the ranks of the 
common herd, but even among his compeers and professional 
associates, ever ranked him as an individual. 

I am not aware of any single word in our language that denotes 
the broad basis upon which this part of his character rested. 
The German, if any, I rather imagine, would supply it. If the 
three words, heartiness^ sincerity^ sympathy^ could be fused into 
one, they would, perhaps, cover the whole ground. It was this 
quality, in the degree that he possessed it, which gave first a 
point, a strength, an intensity, to his own convictions, and 
imparted afterwards such wonderful fervor to his eloquence 
when he sought to impress them upon others. " Si vis meflere^ 
primum dolendtim est tibiP To strongly move others, the 
speaker must be strongly moved himself — or rather, it must te 
of his nature to le strongly moved. A mere aflfectation of being 
moved will not answer, and he who requires to be taugJit the 
above maxim, had nearly as well remain ignorant of it. Pacta 
nascitur^ nan jit. Any results in the power of such an affecta- 
tion to produce, will be better compared to the spasmodic, 
unnatural contortions of the corpse under the galvanic battery, 
than to the nervous, spontaneous, and, in the effect of their 
example, contagious efforts of the living man. 

But of all men whom it has been my fortune to know, there 
is not one of whom it could be said with greater truth, that he 
needed not to be taught the maxim quoted above, than of your 
brother. To say that he possessed in an extraordinary degree 
the attribute I am ascribing to him, would be less true than to 
say that it possessed him. It v/as an all-pervading, and tlie all- 
controlling element in his nature. To omit this from an esti- 
mate of his character, Avould be, to borrow an expression from 
Macaulay, like omitting the character of Hamlet or Lear from 
those dramas. It was of his very essence. By its aid every 
Bubject, even to the most dry and withered, became vitalized 



i 



ELEMENTS OF HIS CHARACTER. 383 

under Lis touch — not merely adorued by Ins fancy, illustrated 
by liis imagination, and irradiated as to its exterior by his under- 
standing, but impenetrated by his own kindling warmth, and 
wrought, as the iron from the glowing forge in the hands of the 
workman, into obedient shape. The advantage he thus pos- 
sessed beyond anything within the power of pure intellect to 
bestow, was hardly less than that the compound bl<)wj)ipe 
possesses over ordinary and simple combustion ; a remark which, 
taken in a little more extended sense, may serve to illustrate 
more fully what has been said before — that in every company, 
and in every task to which he applied himself, he was still an 
individual, not one of a class. Not satisfied with lavishing 
upon him those eminent qualities which he shared in common 
with others, Nature, in a mood of unwonted prodigality, added 
this special gift, which, in the same degree, she has seldom 
bestowed upon her greatest favorites. It was not merely a 
Benjamin's portion — a mere excess compared with what his 
brethren had received, but something ditiering in kind, as was 
the attribute of being invulnerable given to Achilles by his 
mother, when she plunged him into the Styx. 

Closely connected with, and growing in part out of 
this quality, was that generous hope, that consciousness of 
power, and that unsimulated ease, which are so essential to the 
orator, and which, I may say without fear of contradiction, were 
so uniformly and so singularly characteristic of your brother. 
His audience felt themselves perfectly safe in his hands, even in 
his boldest flights. If he " went up like a rocket," they were 
disturbed by no fears lest he should " come down like a stick." 
Indeed, so completely was their attention engrossed by the 
argument, that there was little left to be bestowed upon him 
who made it. Much as there was in his manner and whole 
appearance to arrest attention, from the significant nod of the 
head to the strikingly intellectual countenance, radiant all over 
with a vital intelligence, it was ever his subject, and not him- 
seif, that filled the eye of the "beholder. I believe it is Cowper 
who, in one of his letters, speaking of Lord Mansfield, aLudes to 
the intelligent smile upon his features, even when engpged upoD 



• % 



384 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

a case of the greatest intricacy, that evidently bespoke the ease 
of his mental operations. I feel assured the same thing must 
have been often noticed in the subject of these remarks. I have 
myself watched him with an interest and a curiosity like that 
with which, in an extensive machine-shop, I have gazed, half 
incredulously, upon the unpretending, uniform, unhesitating 
movement of some isolated portion of the machinery, clothed 
with a wonderful energy, while the motive power was itself out 
of sight. 

But I must confine myself to a general, and, what I trust 
may prove to be, a suggestive outline, rather than attempt 
anything like minuteness of detail. Significantly auxiliary to 
that first, dominant element of his nature — dwelling with it in 
such intimate union, and producing such kindred results as to 
seem at times almost identical with it, was his imagination. As 
it would be difficult to determine which of these two mutual 
allies gained most to itself by the aid of the other, so it would 
be equally diflSciilt to estimate the rich revenue which unitedly 
they brought to their possessor. The faculty of which I am 
now speaking is held in very diflferent estimation according to 
the office severally assigned to it by different individuals. In its 
more popular and commonly -received acceptation, it is synony- 
mous with its adjective — imaginative ; which last word, by long 
usage and general sanction, has come to have a meaning of its 
own quite beyond anything in the root from which it is derived. 
It indicates something opposite to, and inconsistent with, the 
more solid and substantial qualities. To say that a man is 
imaginative, is equivalent to saying that he is not a profound 
man, and in proportion as this quality belongs to him, he is sup- 
posed to be unsafe and unsound, possibly even to the point of 
being visionary, wild, fantastic. But, assuredly, it is in no such 
inferior sense as this that I now use the terra imagination, but 
rather in that far higher sense of a creative faculty, conducting to 
the discovery, assisting in the analysis, revealing the very essence 
of divine truths ; and when found, as in the present instance, 
associated with an intense emotional energy, including all that 
is meant by the somewhat vague but comprehensive terra 



HIS LEGAL CHARACTER. 385 

genius. It is indeed an Aladdin's lamp to its possessor, 
rendering obedient to bis bidding genii, tbat are deaf tc 
the call of those who are without it — an "open sesame," 
divulging to his eye, and placing at his control, treasures of 
incalculable value, for ever locked, alas ! against the multitude, 
who admire and envy, but may not so much as touch. Imagi- 
nation with him was not a disturbing, nor a dissipating influ- 
ence, but the very opposite of all this — it gave force, intensity, 
concentration to his other powers. 

And I am the more particular to advert to the above distinc • 
tion, because, when recognized and properly understood, it will 
go far to dispose of a question which, at an early period of his 
history, was not unfrequently asked respecting your brother, and 
one which it is possible still remains, to some extent, unsettled. 
You will readily anticipate the question to be this — whether 
his imagination did not exist, if not to the exclusion, at least to 
the prejudice, of a more sober and practical development? 
And before proceeding to a more direct examination of this 
question, it may be worth while to glance for a moment at 
some of the external accidents of his position when he first 
entered pubhc life, since I doubt not that these had much to do 
towards fixing a false and injurious estimate of his character. 

It is as a candidate for public favor that he first attracts 
our notice. He has hitherto been known, when known at all, 
as a private teacher, somewhere in the neighborhood of aristo- 
cratic Natchez, wljere distinctions of caste existed in the most 
rigorous and tyrannical form — where the pedagogical office, 
which had to do with the planter's white children, ranked next 
in degree below that of overseer to his blacks who hoed in his 
cotton-field, and where the only question asked about the 
Yankee tribe was, " Can any good thing come out of Naza- 
reth ?" We discover at a glance how intolerably irksome 
such a situation must have proved to such a man as he of whom 
I am speaking. We can imagine his restiveness under a yoke 
peculiarly galling to one of his proud and generous nature, 
his indignation never wholly, scarce half, suppressed at the 
assumed superiority, the supeiciliuus arrogance reposing com* 

VOL. n. n 



386 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

placently upon cotton-bales, and little else; and as we seem 
almost to hear the quick rejoinder, the well-timed and cutting 
rebuke, under whose infliction some as yet uninitiated and 
offending wight slinks cowardly off, we are reminded of a tres- 
passing cur, who, startled at the growl of the chained mastiff he 
has aroused, will be careful in future to learn the length of the 
chain before he ventures near, "We can imagine, too, how 
impatiently he awaits those distant honors of which he must 
at least faintly foresee he is to be the future proprietor. 
"We seem to note the very foot-prints smoothly worn by his 
nervous tread, in restless round, over the floor of his nar- 
row prison, through whose bars he even now glares, almost 
fiercely, in anticipation of the rioting feast that awaits him. 
And these days shall not last always. A consuming thirst is 
within him, an appetite sharpened by long protracted fasting. 
The door is at length thrown open, and with tense nerve and 
lithe limb, at a single leap, he bounds into the very middle of 
the arena. Hardly has his foot touched the sand, when the huzzas 
of the assembled multitude proclaim his triumph. With scarce 
a feeble show of resistance, the victim has yielded. He now 
knows the taste of blood, and he likes it well. The " stump,'' 
in these days, is in all its glory. No longer ago, even, than his 
time, politics were possessed of a vitality which seems almost 
impossible to one who surveys their present state of apathy and 
death. Jacksonism was a very different sort of thing from that 
miserable drab called Fusionism, at once the parent and the child 
of imbecility. Politics, too, in Mississippi, was a very different 
thing from politics in the older States. It was almost the only 
channel in which the thoughts of nineteen-twentieths of the 
population strongly flowed, and here it was they made their 
nearest approximation to anything like intellectual activity or 
enjoyment. Almost every man was a tolerable politician, and a 
notice of a barbacue, when the first course was to consist of a 
stirring speech, was sure to attract men whose minds would have 
nearly perished of starvation, but for the provision thus made 
for them. 

And now the name of Prentiss gave to these meetings an 



HIS POPULAR ORATORY. 3 81 

additional attraction, and the more so, when it came to be known 
how well he understood, and how capable he was of supplying 
their wants. The racy anecdote — the piquant jest — the keen 
irony — the scathing denunciation — the withering rebuke — the 
striking metaphor — the apt illustration, all which, as everybody 
knows, he scattered right and left in such prodigal profusion, 
went to make up that highly seasoned dish his hearers loved so 
well. But even on occasions like these, favorable as they doubt- 
less were to the exhibition of skill, and grace, and ingenuity, 
rather than of sterner qualities, and adapted as tliey were to 
develop those which may safely be called inferior gifts, that 
principle of heartiness in his nature already alluded to, was 
still asserting its supremacy, and compelled him, in spite of 
himself, if I may use so stroug an expression, to have an aim in 
view, and to keep his eye upon it. The river flowed, it is true, 
through a country of tropical luxuriance, in whose bosom were 
reflected the warmth and the glow of a southern sky, and the gor- 
geous array of rose-tinted clouds ; its banks on either side exhi 
biting in endless profusion flowers of every varied hue. But for 
all that the river did not stop its flowing. It still rolled on in 
undiminished volume, in its own deep, well-defined, appointed 
channel, a full and sweeping tide, to its appointed end. 

It was, then, in the tield of oratory, empliatically oi popular 
oratory, that your brother won his spurs. First in order of time 
came the exhibition, perhaps the development, of those lighter 
and more graceful accomplishments supposed to be characteristic 
of the orator, rather than those severer and sterner qualities that 
belong to the lawyer and advocate. But coming first in the 
order of time, they fixed the first estimate of his character ; and 
it is not too much to say, that the brilliant reputation he had 
already won in that capacity, stood in the way of his adding to 
it another equally brilliant, which by common consent must rest 
upon attributes not only difiering from, but supposed to be 
incompatible with, those already exhibited. It is necessary that 
his former achievments in a former field should be forgotten, 
before men will believe him capable of new ones in a new field ; 
and even when the proof is forthcoming, the mind hesitates to 



388 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

let go its first impression. They who have only just turned 
admiringly a-way from witnessing the dextrous sleight of Sala 
din, will be slow to believe that the same arm will presently 
fiwing with equal ease the battle-axe of a Richard. 

These, then, were the circumstances under which the question 
before named had its origin, and we need not deny that it was a 
catural question. That a symmetrical development is the 
exception, and not the rule, we may safely admit, and that an 
unusual development in one direction is prima facie evidence 
of a deficiency elsewhere, we may also admit. But the evidence 
is prima facie only. Diverse as two sets of faculties may be, 
there is surely in the necessity of the case no such antago- 
nism between them as to preclude the possibility of both 
being found united in great perfection in the same individual. 
True indeed it is, that such a union is not often found ; but Nature 
loves to disappoint our complacent calculations — to show her 
disdain for those set formularies by which we seek to limit her 
freedom, and her contempt for that exact, slavish, narrow- 
minded criticism, which, remembering that the dray-horse is not 
suited for the turf, would apply the analogy, at once absurd and 
degrading, to the soul of man. 

And since the estimate I am attempting to present of your 
brother as a man, is designed to be only subsidiary to my main 
purpose of showing what might, a priori^ have been expected 
of him as a lawyer, I remark further, that even were it true that 
a diversity of gifts is to be had only at the price of possessing 
some of them in an inferior degree, it is still a price that may 
Avell be paid in a profession like that of the law, where the diver- 
sity of which I speak, contributing largely as it does towards a 
common and partial success, is absolutely indispensable in order 
to attain the highest. If there be any into whose net nothing 
comes amiss, it is the lawyer ; and to him, with greater propriety 
than to almost any other, may be ofi*ered the admonition given 
to his son by the thrifty husbandman, " to waste nothing, since 
at some time a place shall be found for the most worthless 
scrap." 

Happily, however, no such sacrifice as that just alluded to was 



nrS LF.GXh CHARACTER. 38i 

required of your brother. As was said at the commencement 
of these remarks, tliere was found in him" a remarkable, and al 
the same time most healthful union of manifold attributes, sub- 
sisting not at variance with, or to the prejudice of each other, 
but dwelling together in a bond of fraternal amity — a league foi 
mutual aid. If he possessed a mind eminently graceful, capable 
of investing the most rugged and difficult paths with the charma 
of poesy, it was a mind, too, that gave no sign of fainting in that 
fiercer grapple — those closer encounters, to which the massive 
strength of a sinewy intellect alone is equal. If with despotic 
energy and license, he subsidized the universe to his imagery, 
he no less submissively acknowledged the authority of a rigid 
taste, which always and instantly discarded mere tinkling 
gauds and meretricious ornaments. If by the aid of his imagi- 
nation the path of his argument was attended by a brilliancy 
almost dazzling, it could not be said of it, as was .once remarked 
of a production of the celebrated John Foster, " all luminous, but 
no light." There was both light and heat, and if the first ever 
seemed in excess, we should remember — to recur to the illustra- 
tion of the blow-pipe — that it was steel which was burning. 
Was he gifted with a fluency of speech not only far beyond the 
common average, but to an extent rarely witnessed even in the 
most distinguished speakers, it still was not a fluency that 
obscured or kept back his meaning ; but so swiftly obedient did 
each word answer to the gentle summons — so orderly and so 
gracefully did it fall into place, that whole sentences seemed to 
present themselves as so many many-syllabled words, ready 
formed to his mind. 

Having taken this very general, and necessarily imperfect sur- 
vey of his character as a man, with a view to the a priori argu- 
ment which it furnishes as to what might be expected of his 
chances as a lawyer, there remains but little room, and but little 
necessity too, for inquiring how far the argument is sustained by 
the facts in his history. But as the sketch may appear to be 
inconiplete without them, I proceed to add a few words illustra- 
tive of this point. And in this connection, it is all-important to 
bear in njind how utterly dissimilar are all the accidents upon 
which rest, and 'jy whose aid are built up, the reputations 



390 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

respectively of the lawyer and the orator. To the MgTiest efforts 
of the former — those efforts upon which his reputation must 
chiefly rest — who, and how many are the witnesses? The 
judges on the bench, in some instances the parties interested in 
the suit, and perhaps a score more or less of his professional 
brethren, his competitors in the race, in a vast majority of cases 
compose his audience. The question at issue — involving as it 
may momentous rights — has for tlie most part only a local im- 
portance, very rarely extends beyond the limits of tlie State 
where it arises, and is totally destitute of that general, national 
interest which attaches to those great political truths that so 
frequently fall withi« the province of the public speaker. A 
legal reputation, then, which extends beyond the boundaries of 
the State where it is acquired, must necessarily be of slow growth 
and difficult acquisition. But the same condition of things 
which renders its acquisition slow and difficult, renders the proof 
upon which it rests also difficult. But I must not enlarge. The 
allusion once made, it can liardly fail to suggest a multitude of 
similar reflections all to the same purpose, which taken together 
fully explain the inequality of proof in the two cases, and show 
that any inference drawn from it — in this particular instance — 
prejudicial to your brother's reputation in that department where 
the proof is least accessible, would be erroneous. 

And an examination of the judicial records of the State where 
he spent the larger portion of liis professional life, would abun- 
dantly and unequivocally corroborate the a priori view already 
presented. The Mississippi bar at this time was distinguished 
for its ability. The great financial embarrassment, commencing 
in 1835, and extending through a series of years, the insolvent 
or crippled condition of Southern merchants, resulting from 
this embarrassment and forcing IsTorthern creditors to resort to 
compulsory measures to recover their debts ; above all, the 
explosion of the most extensive, and extensively corrupt and 
fraudulent banking system ever known, which added greatly 
to the already existing entanglement and perplexity — tliese 
things altogether furnished a most fruitful source of con- 
tention which the courts were called upon to adjust. The 
amount of property thus at stake was immense. Litigatiou 



HIS LEGAL CHARACTER. 391 

became the order of the day.* Lawyers swarmed in every 
town and village, and notwithstanding the multitude to be 
provided for, the fund, for a time at least, showed no signs of 
exhaustion. The supply could not exceed the demand. As one 
result, most exorbitant fees were exacted, and freely paid. As 
another result, a personal acumen, keen to discover this fact, 
attracted here a great legal acumen to take advantage of it, and 
as has been remarked already, the bar which assembled in term 
time at Jackson, the seat of government, included within it men 
highly gifted by nature, who, by close study and long experi- 
ence, had made attainments in the science of law not often 
surpassed. 

But occupying, as it did, this high position, it is no thought- 
less panegyric which proclaims him of whom I am writing its 
brightest ornament. Others miglit, doubtless, have been selected 
who approached, nay, who reached the same level with himself 
in some one or more particulars, but in that wholeness of cha- 
racter already attributed to him, he far, very far, outstripped 
them all. In most, if not all the cases of first importance, where 
large interests were involved, or great principles of law were 
to be applied, his name, on one side or the other, is found as 
counsel, showing him to have been in the enjoyment of a prac- 
tice as honorable, as extensive, as lucrative, as probably ever fell 
to the lot of a man similarly situated with himself. 

And now occurs an event in his life which strongly illus- 

_ * 

* The following extract from a letter, written by a legal friend, under date of 
ViCKSBURG, April 18, 1S3S, will show with what violence litigation was raging at 
that point — and also how many were in readiness to help it on. The case was sub- 
stantially the same throughout the State. 

"To your inquiries about business, a paper I sent you some time ago, containing 
our advertisement, will give you the best information. We will hereafter have aa 
much to do as we can well manage ; particularly of heavily litigated business. If 
you had been inclined to accept your brother's generous proposition to become a 
member of the legal profession, now would have been your harvest. There are 
two thousand and five hundred suits brought to the May term, 1838, of the Circuit 
Court of this county alone — more than a suit to each voter ! We bring more than 
a hundred of these— which is considerably more than the average to each lawyer 

there being about sixty lawyers in town. We will also bring from twenty to fifty 

Chancery suits, the fee in each of which will be handsome. So that, to maka 
the matter short, we are doing very well."— Ed. 



392 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

trates that generous hope, that consciousness of power whicli 
belonged to his nature. Disgusted with a State deeply 
branded with the stigma of repudiation — that vile thing he 
so deeply loathed and so bitterly denounced — and attracted 
to a field where his versatile genius should have a wider 
scope and a more varied exercise, he turns his back upon the 
scene of his earlier triumphs and his later success, to com- 
mence over again the gallant struggle. He becomes a resi- 
dent of the neighboring State of Louisiana, the only State in 
this Union where the Civil Law is found. He enters the lists 
where he must contend with weapons to which he is all unused, 
to find himself arrayed against veterans in the profession, 
whose fame was fully established as long ago as when, if 
not himself despised, he held the despised office of a teacher 
of youth on the banks of the Mississippi; — veterans who for. 
years, so active had been the service, might almost be said to 
have slept upon their arms, and who had become perfectly 
familiar with all the intricate by-ways of that intricate system. 
A most hazardous venture, that few indeed would have tried, 
and from which fewer still would have wrested success. But 
even here Fortune follows her favorite, and suffers not the laurel 
with wlUch she has decked- his brow to fade or wither. But 
this sketch has already swelled far beyond my intention, and I 
may not follow him further. A few words relative to his suc- 
cess in the department of Criminal Law, and I have done. 

That in the most dire exigence which ever happens to men in 
this world, services such as your brother was pre-eminently cal- 
culated to render should fail to be in constant requisition, is 
not to be expected. TVe accordingly find him, either in his own 
or a neighboring State, continually employed to defend men 
arrainged for offences whose penalty was death ; and if the 
success attending his efforts cannot be called remarkable, it is 
only because mail such cases, acquittal was the rule — conviction 
the exception — a remark which is, perhaps, true, though not to 
the same extent, of even the older States.* Altogether aside 



* It was in criminal trials that the juniors flourished. We went into them with 
the same feeling of irresponsibility that Allen Fairfield went into the trial of poor 



HIS CRIMINAL PRACTICE. 393 

from any of the accidents belonging to the case, a conviction for 
capital crime is a difficult thing everywhere. The leaning is 
all in favor of the accused. The legal maxim which gives 
him the " benefit of a doubt," is strongly seconded by the natural 
instincts of the heart, which, while it weighs the evidence, still 
never forgets the terrible penalty. A recent successful prosecu- 
tion, obtained, it is true, against unusual odds, even in law-abid- 
ing, order-loving Massachusetts, was hardly less a cause of sur- 
prise than of gratification. 

But when to these inherent obstacles is superadded a condi- 

Peter Peeble's suit vs. Plainstaines, namely — that there was but little danger of hurt- 
ing the case. Any ordinary jury would have acquitted nine cases out of ten with- 
out counsel's instigating them thereto — to say nothing of the hundred avenues of 
escape through informalities and technical points. In fact, criminals were so unskill- 
fuUy defended in many in-stances, that the jury had to acquit in spite of the counsel. 
Almost anything made out a case of self-defence — a threat — a quarrel — an insult — 
going armed, as almost all the wild fellows did — shooting from behind a corner, or 
out of a store door, in front or from behind — it was all self-defence ! The only skill 
in the matter, was in getting the right sort of a jury, which fact could be easily 
ascertained, either from the general character of the men, or from certain discove- 
ries the defendant had been enabled to make in his mingling among "his friends 
and the public generally," — for they were all, or nearly all, let out on bail or with- 
out it. Usually, the sheriff, too, was a friendly man, and not inclined to omit a 
kind service that was likely to be remembered with gratitude at the next election. 

The major part of criminal cases, except misdemeanors, were for killing, or 
assaults with intent to kill. They were usually defended upon points of chivalry. 
The iron rules of British law were too tyrannical for free Americans, and too cold 
and unfeeling for the hot blood of the sunny South. They were denounced accord- 
ingly, and practically scouted fi'om Mississippi judicature, on the broad ground 
that they were unsuited to the genius of American institutions and the American 
character. There was nothing technical in this, certainly. 

But if the case was a hopeless or very dangerous one, there was another way to 
get rid of it. " The world was all before" the culprit " where to choose." The jails 
were in such a condition — generally small log pens — that they held the prisoner 
very little better than did the indictment : for the most part, they held no one but 
Indians, who had no friend outside who could help them, and no skill inside to prize 
out. It was a matter of free election for the culprit in a desperate case, whether 
he would remain in jail or not; and it is astonishing how few exercised their pri- 
vilege in favor of staying. The pains of exile seemed to present no stronger bars 
to expatriation, than the jail doors or windows. 

The ineflSciency of the arresting officers, too, was generally such that the male- 
factor could wind up his affairs and leave before the constable was on his track. If 
he gave bail, there were the chances of breaking the bond or recognizance, and the 
assurance against injury, derived from the fact that the recognizors were already 
broke. — T?ie Flush Times of Alabama and Mississippi, p. 59. 

VOL. II. n* 



394 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

tion of society tending to produce similar results, the diflBcuIty 
is increased so as hardly to admit of being overestimated. The 
very laxity and inefficiency of the law furnishes the accused 
with a most legitimate plea of justification, and indeed has much 
to do in the interpretation and application of the maxims which 
define the offence. To determine what constitutes a " a reason- 
able ground of alarm," so as to render a homicide justifiable as 
being in necessary self-defence, we must first know how far the 
ftutliority of the State affords a protection, and how far each one 
is left to depend upon his own arm for defence. To compel a 
man to " flee to the wall," even in the weakest sense the expres- 
Bion will admit of, in a country where the chances are that his 
opponent has a revolver in his pocket, and a bowie-knife under 
his vest, especially if at the same time there be small fear before 
his eyes of any law to deter him from using them, would seem 
an absurdity hard to be exceeded. To qualify herself for a suc- 
cessful prosecutor^ the State must first prove herself to le a com- 
petent guardian. Paradox as it may appear to be — it is still 
true, tliat in a state of society where the carrying of deadly wea- 
pons is tolerated and practised, life is held very cheap, and at 
the same time very valuable ; and a man who, in a sudden 
affray, or under a slight provocation, would not hesitate to take 
another's life, transferred to the jury-box, refuses to award the 
punishment of death, however justly merited. 

The influence, too, of the survivor— I mean the accused party 
and of his friends, is capable of being exerted in very different 
degrees, as the society of which he is a member is more or less 
advanced, and is more or less under the authority of efficient 
laws. During my residence in Mississippi, I had offered to my 
notice, more than once, a practical illustration of this remark. 
Other similar considerations might be adduced to the same pur- 
pose, but it seems unnecessary to attempt a further explanation 
of the infrequency of such convictions, v/hen it is rather matter 
for surprise that they should, under such circumstances, occur 
at all. 



NEW year's letter. 395 



CHAPTER XXIY. 

Address before the New England Society of New Orleans — Letters — Address on 
Behalf of the Starving Poor of Ireland — Death of his Eldest Sister — Letters- 
Address to the Returned Volunteers of Gen. Taylor's Army — ^Letters. 

^T. 37-8. 1846-r. 

He began the new year, as usual, with a letter to his 
mother. Here it is : 

Nbw Obleans, Jan. 1, 1846. 

My Dear Mother:— 

I cannot let the day pass without sending yon my 
most affectionate regards, and wishing you a happy New Year. 
I wish I was in Portland or you were here, that I might pay you 
in person my love and respect. I trust you are well and happy, 
and that many new years to come will continue to find you so ; 
for your happiness is multiplied among all your children, and 
when you enjoy health and comfort, it fills us all with pleasure. 
Mary and Abby have both written you to-day, and I suppose 
given you all the news ; so I shall not have much to say. We 
have at lecgth got fahly settled down in New Orleans, and begin 
to feel at home. I am much pleased with the change, and like 
New Orleans a great deal better than Vicksburg. "We are quite 
pleasantly situated, and have a nice house. I am gratified with 
my prospects here, and do not doubt I shall succeed very well. 
I have already considerable business, and if my health is spared, 
do not fear for the future. I only regret I did not move here 
many years ago. 

The weatlier has been unusually cold and rainy, though now 



396 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

it is delightful. It is astonishing how Abby has stcod it. I 
think she has continued to improve ever since she came out, not- 
withstanding the bad weather, and I have no doubt if she con- 
tinues to hold on till the warm spring days, she will then improve 
rapidly. You cannot imagine what a comfort it is to have her 
with us. Mary loves her very much, and the children are as 
fond of her as they are of their mother. I don't know how we 
should have got along without her this winter. Captain D. and 
Mr. P. arrived here almost a week ago, and will be here several 
weeks ; they stay up with us a good deal. We have a room for 
them, and they sleep and eat here whenever they choose. I 
never saw Capt. D. in finer health and spirits. We are all quite 
well, except bad colds. I have sufiered more than I ever did in 
my life from them, but am now getting over them. Jeanie has 
not recovered entirely from the effects of her fever, but is better. 
I delivered an oration on the 22d of December, before the New 
England Society, which was very well received. I sent you a 
copy, which I hope got on safe. A.nd now, my dear mother, I 
must say good-bye. God bless you, and preserve you to us all ; 
may many and happy days await you ! Such is the fervent 
prayer of 

Your affectionate son, 

Sergeant. 

The address alluded to was written in haste, amidst the 
cares of moving, and is, I think, inferior in style and elo- 
quence to many of his impromptu speeches. Still, it is a 
beautiful expression of his New England feelings, and was 
well adapted to an audience largely composed of persons 
who had rarely, or never, listened to a eulogy of the Pilgrim 
Fathers.* 



* The announcement that Mr. Prentiss would address the New England Society, 
was hailed with enthusiasm by all our citizens, and has been a prominent interest 
for the last few weeks. * * * jjis description of the voyage and landing 
of the Pilgrims were pictures of the highest merit ; and when he said the vessel that 
carried Caesar had ignoble freight compared with the May Flower, the audience 
responded with exultation. * * ♦ We have often listened to Mr. Pren> 



PILGRIM ADDRESS. 397 

His friend, Mr. Crittenden, writes him under date of 
WashIxVgton City, Feb. 16th : "I have read, with the 
greatest pleasure, your late speech on the anniversary of the 
Landing of the Pilgrims. It is, indeed, a noble effort, and 
richly have you been rewarded with the public admiration. 
I have known nothing of that kind that has received so 
mtoch applause. I thought it well merited, and I rejoiced 
in it." 

ADDRESS ON THE LANDING OF THE PILGRIMS. 

This is a day dear to the sons of ISTew England, and ever held 
by them in sacred remembrance. On this day, from every 
quarter of the globe, they gather in spirit around the Rock of 
Plymouth, and hang upon the urns of their Pilgrim Fathers the 
garlands of filial gratitude and affection. We have assembled for 
the purpose of participating in this honorable duty ; of perform- 
this pious pilgrimage. To-day we will visit that memorable 
spot. We will gaze upon the place where a feeble band of per- 
secuted exiles founded a mighty nation : and our hearts will 
exult with proud gratification as we remember that on that 
barren shore our ancestors planted not only empire but Free- 
dom. We will meditate upon their toils, their sufferings, and 
their virtues, and to-morrow return to our daily avocations, with 
minds refreshed aud improved by the contemplation of their 
high principles and noble purposes. 

The human mind cannot be contented with the present. It is 
ever journeying through the trodden regions of the past, or 
making adventurous excursions into the mysterious realms of the 
future. He who lives only in the present, is but a brute, and 
has not attained the human dignity. Of the future bat little is 

Tiss; he has always been eloquent beyond compeei-. His oration yesterday was a 
master-piece, full of thoughts that breathe and words that burn ; but the occasion, 
sacred as it was to the associations of the heart, was not one to call forth his power- 
ful mind ; and the self-imposed restraint of notes confined his soaring imagination 
and made us think, brilliant as he was, of Apollo bound.— A^ew Orleans Cotntner^ 
cial Times, Dec. 23, 1845. 



398 MEMOIR OP S. S. PRENTISS. 

known ; clouds and darkness rest upon it ; we yearn to become 
acquainted with its hidden secrets ; we stretch out our arms 
towards its shadowy inhabitants ; we invoke our posterity, but 
they answer us not. We wander in its dim precincts till reason 
becomes confused, and at last start back in fear, like mariners 
who have entered an unknown ocean, of whose winds, tides, 
currents, and quiclssands they are wholly ignorant. Then it is 
we turn for relief to the past-, that mighty reservoir of men and 
things. There we have something tangible to which our sym- 
pathies can attach ; upon which we can lean for support ; from 
whence we can gather knowledge and learn wisdom. There we 
are introduced into Nature's vast laboratory and witness her 
elemental labors. We mark with interest the changes in conti- 
nents and oceans by which she has notched the centuries. But 
our attention is still more deeply aroused by the great moral 
events, which have controlled the fortunes of those who have 
preceded us, and still influence our own. With curious wonder, 
we gaze down the long aisles of the past, upon the generations 
that are gone. We behold, as in a magic glass, men in form and 
feature like ourselves, actuated by the same motives, urged by 
the same passions, busily engaged in shaping out both their own 
destinies and ours. We approach them, and they refuse notour 
invocation. We hold converse with the wise philosophers, the 
sage legi.slators and the divine poets. We enter the tent of the 
general, and partake of his most secret counsels. We go forth 
with him to the battle-field, and behold him place his glittering 
squadrons ; then we listen with a pleasing fear to the trumpet 
and the drum, or the still more terrible music of the booming 
cannon and the clashing arms. But most of all, among the 
innumerable multitudes who peopled the past, we seek our own 
ancestors, drawn towards them by an irresistible sympathy. 
Indeed, they were our other selves. With reverent solicitude wt 
examine into their character and actions, and as we find them 
worth or unworthy, our hearts swell with pride, or our cheeks 
glow with shame. We search with avidity for the most trivial 
circumstances in their history, and eagerly treasure up every 
memento of their fortunes. The instincts of our nature bind us 



NEW ENGLAND ADDRESS. 899 

indissolubly to them and link our fates with theirs. Men cannot 
live without a past ; it is as essential to them as a future. Into 
its vast confines we still journey to-day, and converse with our 
Pilgrim Fathers. We will speak to them and they shall 
answer us. 

Two centuries and a quarter ago, a little tempest-tost, wea- 
ther-beaten bark, barely escaped fiiom the jaws of the wild '' 
Atlantic, landed upon the bleakest shore of New England. 
From her deck disembarked a hundred and one care-worn exiles. 
To the casual observer no event could seem more insignificant. 
The contemptuous eye of the world scarcely deigned to notice it. 
Yet the famous vessel that bore Csesar and his fortunes, carried 
but an ignoble freight compared with that of the Mayflower. Her 
little band of pilgrims brought with them neither wealth nor 
power, but the principles of civil and religious freedom. They 
planted them, for the first time in the Western Continent. They 
cherished, cultivated and developed them to a full and luxuriant 
maturity ; and then furnished them to their posterity as the only 
sure and permanent foundations for a free government. Upon 
those foundations rests the fabric of our great Republic : upon 
those principles depends the career of human liberty. Little 
did the miserable pedant and bigot who then wielded the sceptre 
of Great Britain, imagine that from this feeble settlement of 
persecuted and despised Puritans, in a century and a half, would 
arise a nation capable of coping with his own mighty empire in 
arts and arms. 

It is not my purpose to enter into the history of the Pilgrims ; 
to recount the bitter persecutions and ignominious sufferings 
wliich drove them from England ; to tell of the eleven years of 
peace and quiet spent in Holland, under their beloved and vene- 
rated pastor; nor to describe the devoted patriotism which 
prompted them to plant a colony in some distant land, where 
they could remain citizens of their native country and at the 
same time be removed from its oppressions : where they could 
enjoy liberty without violating allegiance. Neither shall I speak 
of the perils of their adventurous voyage; of the hardships of 
their early settlement ; of the famine which prostrated, and the 
pestilence which consumed them. 



400 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

"With all these things you are familiar, both from the page of 
history and from tlie lips of tradition. On occasions similar to 
this, the ablest and most honored sons of New England have been 
accustomed to tell, with touching eloquence, the story of their 
sufferings, their fortitude, their perseverance, and their success. 
With pious care, they have gathered and preserved the scattered 
memorials of those early days, and the names of Carver, Brad- 
ford, "Winslow, Standish, and their noble companions, have long 
since become with us venerated household words. 

There were, however, some traits that distinguished the enter- 
prise of the Pilgrims from all others, and which are well worthy 
of continued remembrance. In founding their colony they sought 
neither wealth nor conquest, but only peace and freedom. They 
asked but for a region where they could make their own laws, 
and worship God according to the dictates of their own con- 
sciences. From the moment they touched the shore, they 
labored, with orderly, systematic, and persevering industry. 
They cultivated, without a murmur, a poor and ungrateful soil, 
which even now yields but a stubborn obedience to the dominion 
of the plough. They made no search for gold, nor tortured the 
miserable savages to wring from them the discovery of imaginary 
mines. Though landed by a treacherous pilot upon a barren and 
inhospitable coast, they sought neither richer fields nor a more 
genial climate. They found hberty, and for the rest it mattered 
little. For more than eleven years they had meditated upon 
their enterprise, and it was no small matter could turn them 
from its completion. On the spot where first they rested from 
their wanderings, vnth stern and high resolve, they built their 
little city and founded their young repubhc. Their honesty, 
industry, knowledge and piety grew up together in happy union. 
There, in patriarchal simplicity and republican equality, the Pil- 
grim Fathers and Mothers passed their honorable days, leaving 
to their posterity the invaluable legacy of their principles and 
example. 

How proudly can we compare their conduct with that of the 
adventurers of other nations who preceded them. How did the 
Spaniard colonize ? Let Mexico, Peru and Hispaniola answer. 
He followed in the train of the great Discoverer, like a devour- 



NEW ENGLAND ADDRESS. 401 

ing pestilence. His cry was gold ! gold I ! gold ! ! ! N'ever in 
the history of the world had the sacra fames auri exhibited 
itself with such fearful intensity. His imagination maddened 
with visions of sudden and boundless wealth, clad in mail, he 
leaped upon the New World, an armed robber. In greedy haste 
he grasped the sparkling sand, then cast it down with curses, 
when he found the glittering grains were not of gold. 

Pitiless as the blood-hound by his side, he plunged into the 
primeval forests, crossed rivers, lakes, and mountains, and pene- 
trated to the very heart of the continent. No region, however 
rich in soil, delicious in climate, or luxuriant in production, could 
tempt his stay. In vain the soft breeze of the tropics, laden 
with aromatic fragrance, woed him to rest ; in vain the smiling 
valleys, covered witli spontaneous fruits and flowers, invited him 
to peaceful quiet. His search was still for gold : the accursed 
hunger could not be appeased. The simple natives gazed upon 
him in superstitious wonder, and worshipped him as a god ; and 
he proved to them a god, but an infernal one — terrible, cruel 
and remorseless. With bloody hands he tore the ornaments 
from their persons, and the shrines from their altars : he tor- 
tured them to discover hidden treasure, and slew them that he 
might search, even in their wretched throats, for concealed gold. 
Well might the miserable Indians imagine that a race of evil 
deities had come among them, more bloody and relentless than 
those who presided over their own sanguinary rites. 

Kow let us turn to the Pilgrims. They, too, were tempted ; 
and had they yielded to the temptation how different might havo 
been the destinies of this Continent — how different must have 
been our own ! Previous to their undertaking, the Old World 
was filled with strange and wonderful accounts of the New. 
The unbounded wealth, drawn by the Spaniards from Mexico 
and South America, seemed to afford rational support for the 
wildest assertions. Each succeeding adventurer, returning from 
his voyage, added to the Arabian tales a still more extravagant 
Btory. At length Sir Walter Kaleigh, the most accomplished 
and distinguished of all those bold voyageurs, announced to the 
world his discovery of the province Guiana and its magnificent 



402 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

capital, the far-famed city of EI Dorado. "We smile now at his 
account of the " great and golden city," and " the mighty, rich, 
and beautiful empire." We can hardly imagine that any one 
could have believed, for a moment, in their existence. At that 
day, however, the whole matter was received with the most 
implicit faith. Sir Walter professed to have explored the coun- 
try, and thus glowingly describes it from his own observation : 

" I never saw a more beautiful country, nor more lively pros- 
pects ; hills so raised here and there over the valleys — the river 
winding into divers branches — the plains adjoining, without bush 
or stubble — all fair green grass — the deer crossing in every path 
— the birds, towards the evening, singing on every tree with a 
thousand several tunes — the air fresh, with a gentle easterly 
wind : and every stone that we stopped to take up promised 
either gold or silver by its complexion. For health, good air, 
pleasure, and riches, I am resolved it cannot be equalled by any 
region either in the East or "West." 

The Pilgrims were urged, in leaving Holland, to seek this 
charming country, and plant their colony among its Arcadian 
bowers. Well might the poor wanderers cast a longing glance 
towards its happy valleys, which seemed to invite to pious con- 
templation and peaceful labor. Well might the green grass, the 
pleasant groves, the tame deer, and the singing birds, allure them 
to that smiling land beneath the equinoctial line. But while 
they doubted not the existence of this wondrous region, they 
resisted its tempting charms. They had resolved to vindicate, at 
the same time, their patriotism and their principles — to add domi- 
nion to their native land, and to demonstrate to the world the 
practicability of civil and religious liberty. After full discussion 
and mature deliberation, they determined that their great objects 
could be best accomplished by a settlement on some portion of 
the N'orthern continent, which would hold out no temptation to 
cupidity — no inducement to persecution. Putting aside, then, 
all considerations of wealth and ease, they addressed themselves 
with high resolution to the accomplishment of their noble pur- 
pose. In the language of the historian, " Trusting to God and 
themselves," they embarked upon their perilous enterprise. 



NEW ENGLAND ADDRESS. 403 

As I said before, I shall not accompany them on their adven- 
turous voyage. On the 22d day of December, 1620, according 
to our present computation, their footsteps pressed the famous 
Rock which has ever since remained sacred to their venerated 
memory. Poets, painters, and orators have tasked their powers 
to do justice to this great scene. Indeed, it is full of moral 
grandeur; nothing can be more beautiful, more pathetic, or 
more sublime. Behold the Pilgrims, as they stood on that cold 
December day — stern men, gentle women, and feeble children — 
all uniting in singing a hymn of cheerful thanksgiving to the 
Good God, who had conducted them safely across the mighty 
deep, and permitted them to land upon that sterile shore. See 
how their upturned faces glow with a pious confidence which 
the sharp winter winds cannot chill, nor the gloomy forest 
shadows darken : 



♦' Not as the conqueror comes. 

They, the true-hearted came ; 
Not with the roll of the stirring drum, 

Nor the trumpet, that sings of fame ; 
Nor as the flying come. 

In silence and in fear — 
They shook the depths of the desert gloom 

With their hymns of lofty cheer." 



Noble and pious band ! your holy confidence was not in vain : 
your " hymns of lofty cheer " find echo still in the hearts of • 
grateful millions. Your descendants, when pressed by adversity, 
or when addressing themselves to some high action, turn to the 
" Landing of the Pilgrims," and find heart for any fate — strength 
for any enterprise. 

How simple, yet how instructive, are the annals of this little 
settlement. In the cabin of the Mayflower they settled a gene- 
ral form of government, upon the princi[)les of a pure democracy. 
In 1G36 they published a declaration of rights, and established a 
body of laws. The first fundamental article was in these words: 
*' That no act, imposition, law, or ordinance be made, or imposed 
upon us, at present or to come, but such as has been or shall be 



404 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

enacted by the consent of the body of freemen or associates, ot 
their representatives legally assembled," &c. 

Here we find advanced the whole principle of the Revolution 
— the whole doctrine of our republican institutions. Our fathers, 
a hundred years before the Revolution, tested successfully, as far 
as they were concerned, the principle of self-government, and 
solved the problem, whether law and order can co-exist with 
liberty. But let us not forget that they were wise and good 
men who made the noble experiment, and that it may yet fail in 
our hands, unless we imitate their patriotism and virtues. 

There are some who find fault with the character of the 
Pilgrims — who love not the simplicity of their manners, nor the 
austerity of their lives. They were men, and of course imper 
feet ; but the world may well be challenged to point out in the 
whole course of history, men of purer purpose or braver action 
— men who have exercised a more beneficial influence upon the 
destinies of the human race, or left behind them more enduring 
memorials of their existence. 

At all events, it is not for the sons of ISTew England to search 
for the faults of their ancestors. We gaze with profound vene- 
ration upon their awful shades ; we feel a grateful pride in the 
country they colonized— in the institutions they founded — in 
the example they bequeathed. We exult in our birth-place and 
in our lineage. 

Who would not rather be of the Pilgrim stock than claim 
■descent from the proudest Norman that ever planted his robber 
blood in the halls of the Saxon, or the noblest paladin that 
quaffed wine at the table of Charlemagne ? Well may we bo 
proud of our native land, and turn with fond affection to its 
rocky shores. The spirit of the Pilgrims still pervades it, and 
directs its fortunes. Behold the thousand temples of the Most 
High, that nestle in its happy valleys and crown its swelling 
hills. See how their glittering spires pierce the blue sky, and 
eeem like so many celestial conductors, ready to avert the light- 
ning of an angry Heaven. The piety of the Pilgrim Patriarchs 
is not yet extinct, nor have the sons forgotten the God of their 
fathers. 



NEW ENGLAND ADDRESS. 405 

Beliold yon simple building near the crossing of the villaga 
road ! It is small and of rude construction, but stands in a plea- 
sant and quiet spot. A magnificent old elm spreads its broad 
arms above and seems to lean towards it, as a strong man bends 
to shelter and protect a child. A brook runs through the mea- 
dow near, and hard by there is an orchard — but the trees have 
suffered much and bear no fruit, except upon the most remote 
and inaccessible branches. From within its walls comes a busy 
hum, such as you may hear in a disturbed bee-hive. I^Tow peep 
through yonder window and you will see a hundred children, 
with rosy cheeks, mischievous eyes and demure faces, all engaged, 
or pretending to be so, in their little lessons. It is the pubHc 
school — the free, the common school — provided bylaw : open to 
all : claimed from the community as a right, not accepted as a 
bounty. Here the children of the rich and poor, high and low, 
meet upon perfect equality, and commence under the same 
auspices the race of life. Here the sustenance of the mind is 
served up to all alike, as the Spartans served their food upon the 
public table. Here young Ambition climbs his little ladder, and 
boyish Genius plumes his half-fledged wing. From among these 
laughing children will go forth the men who are to control the des- 
tinies of their age and country ; the statesman whose wisdom is to 
guide the Senate — the poet who will take captive the hearts of the 
people and bind them together with immortal song — the philo- 
sopher who, boldly seizing upon the elements themselves, will 
compel them to his wishes, and, through new combinations of 
their primal laws, by some great discovery, revolutionize both 
art ajid science. 

The common village school is New England's fairest boast — 
the brightest jewel that adorns her brow. The principle that 
socie-ty is bound to provide for its members' education as well as 
protection, so that none need be ignorant except from choice, is 
the most important that belongs to modern philosophy. It is 
essential to a republican government. Universal education is 
not only the best and surest, but the only sure foundation for 
free institutions. True liberty is the child of knowledge ; 8h« 
pines away and dies in the arms of ignorance. 



406 MEMOIR OF S S. PRENTISS. 

Honor, then, to the early fathers of New England, from whom 
came the spirit which has built a schoolhouse by every sparkljng 
fountain, and bids all come as freely to the one as to the other. 
All honor, too, to this noble city, who has not disdained to fol- 
low the example of her ITorthern sisters, but has wisely deter- 
mined that the intellectual thirst of her children deserves as 
much attention as their physical, and that it is as much her duty 
to provide the means of assuaging the one as of quenching the 
other. 

But the spirit of the Pilgrims survives, not only in the know- 
ledge and piety of their sons, but, most of all, in tbeir inde- 
fatigable enterprise and indomitable perseverance. 

They have wrestled with nature till they have prevailed 
against her, and compelled her reluctantly to reverse her own 
laws. The sterile soil has become productive under their saga* 
cious culture, and the barren rock, astonished, finds itself cov- 
ered with luxuriant and unaccustomed verdure. 

Upon the banks of every river they build temples to industry, 
and stop the squanderings of the spendthrift waters. They 
bind the naiades of the brawling stream. They drive the 
dryades from their accustomed haunts, and force them to 
desert each favorite grove ; for upon river, creek and bay 
they are busy transforming the crude forest into staunch and 
gallant vessels. From every inlet or indenture along the rocky 
shore swim forth these ocean birds — born in the wild wood, 
fledged upon the wave. Behold how they spread their white 
pinions to the favoring breeze, and wing their flight to every 
quarter of the globe — the iiarrier pigeons of the Avorld ! It is 
upon the unstable element the sons of New England have 
achieved their greatest triumphs. Their adventurous prows vex 
the waters of every sea. Bold and restless as the old iSTorthern 
Vikings, they go forth to seek their fortunes in the mighty deep. 
The ocean is their pasture, and ov0r its wide prairies they follow 
the monstrous herds tliat feed upon its azure fields. As the hun- 
ter casts his lasso upon the wild horse, so they throw their lines 
upon the tumbling whale. They " draw out Leviathan with a 
hook." They "fill his skin with barbed irons," and in spite of 



NEW ENGLAND ADDRESS. 401 

his terrible strength tliey " part liira among the raeichfints." To 
them there are no pillars of Hercules. They seek with avidity 
new regions, and fear not to be " the first that ever burst" into 
nnkuown seas. Had they been the companions of Columbus, the 
great mariner would not have been urged to return, though he 
had sailed westward to his dying day. 

Glorious Xew England 1 thou art still true to thy ancient fame 
and worthy of thy ancestral honors. We, thy children, have 
assembled in this far-distant land to celebrate thy birth-day. A 
thousand fond associations throng upon us, roused by the spirit 
of the hour. On thy pleasant valleys rest, like sweet dews of 
morning, the gentle recollections of our early life ; around thy 
hills and mountains cling, Hke gathering mists, the mighty memo- 
ries of the Revolution ; and far away in the horizon of thy past 
gleam, hke thine own Northern Lights, the awful virtues 
of our Pilgrim Sires ! But while we devote this day to the 
remembrance of our native land, we forget not that in which 
our happy lot is cast. "We exult in the reflection that though we 
count by thousands the miles which separate us from our birth- 
place, still our country is the same. "We are no exiles meeting 
upon the banks of a foreign river, to swell its waters with our 
home-sick tears. Here floats the same banner which rustled above 
our boyish heads, except that its mighty folds are wider and its 
glittering stars increased in number. 

The sons of New England are found in every State of the 
broad Republic. In the East, the South, and the unbounded 
"West, tlieir blood mingles freely with every kindred current. 
We have but changed our chamber in the paternal mansion ; in all 
its rooms we are at home, and all who inhabit it are our brothers. 
To us the Union has but one domestic hearth ; its household 
gods are all the same. Upon us, then, peculiarly devolves the 
duty of feeding the fires upon that kindly hearth ; of guarding 
with pious care those sacred household gdds. 

We cannot do with less than the whole Union ; to us it admits 
of no division. In the veins of our children flows Northern and 
Southern blood; how shall it be separated ; who shall put asun- 
der the best affections of the heart, the noblest instincts of our 



408 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

nature ? We love the land of our adoption, so do we that of our 
birth. Let us ever be true to both ; and always exert ourselves 
in maintaining the unity of our country, the integrity of the 
Republic. 

Accursed, then, be the hand put forth to loosen the golden 
cord of Union ; thrice accursed the traitorous lips, whether of 
Nortliein fanatic or Southern demagogue, which shall propose 
its severance. But no ! the Union cannot be dissolved ; its 
fortunes are too brilhant to be marred ; its destinies too power- 
ful to be resisted. Here will be their greatest triamph, their 
most mighty development. And when, a century hence, this 
Crescent City shall have filled her golden horns ; when within 
her broad-armed port shall be gathered the products of the 
industry of a hundred millions of freemen ; when galleries of 
art and halls of learning shall have made classic this mart of 
trade; then may the sons of the Pilgrims, still wandering from 
the bleak hills of the North, stand upon the banks of the Great 
River, and exclaim with mingled pride and wonder, Lo! this 
is our country : when did the world ever witness so rich and 
magnificent a City — so great and glorious a Republic ! 

The following letter shows how little his own heavy cares 
and pecuniary pressure weakened his kindly sympathies for 
others. The. allusion to California is noteworthy. He lit- 
tle thought that in three or four years fifty thousand " men 
of sense " would have gone there, and two of them be 
returning to take their seats in the National Senate ! 

TO HIS BEOTHEE S., IN MISSOUEl. 

Nbw Orleans, Feb. 9, 1846. 
My Dear Brother: — 

I have just received your letter of the 25th ult., 

and hasten to answer it. I regret to hear of the probable want 

of success in your search for ore, and consequent loss of your 

time, labor, and expense. I am sorry for it on your own account, 

though it is, after all, a matter of but little importance. You 



LETTERS. 409 

have honestly devoted more than a year's hard work to a busi- 
ness which has proved unsuccessful. You have been in had ]uck 
instead of good, Well, what of it ? Your only serious loss is the 
time. Try something else, and perhaps you will have better 
luck next time. You must not, my dear brother, let this failure 
discourage you. You have seen worse times than this. It is 
not half as bad as when your ship went to the bottom, and left 
you in an open boat in the middle of the ocean. 

When you get through your experiment in mining, come down 
and see me. I have very little doubt I can get you into some 
good business here. Though I have no means, I have friends 
and influence. Come and stay with me till you can make the 
trial, at all events. I am keeping house here, and shall be 
delighted to have you come and stay with me as long as you 
please. It will add no burden or expense to me ; and my family 
will be pleased to have you with them. This is the best point, 
at all events, to start from, even if you go elsewhere. As for 
Oregon and California, no man of sense would go to either, till 
compelled to do so. They are always open and wide enough, in 
case a man can't get a living in any other place. 

Abby is with us, and I enclose a letter from her, which will 
tell you how she does. By the last we got from home they were 
all well. Let me hear from you as soon as you get this ; and 
do not fail to come down here, when you get through with Mis- 
souri. Keep up your spirits, and some time or other, I do not 
doubt, your exertions will be successful. 

Your affectionate brother, 

S. S. Prentiss. 



TO HIS YOUNGEST BEOTHEtt. 

Nkw Orleans, April 6, 1848. 
My Dear Brother: — 

* * * * This has been the most embarrassing 

period of my life in financial matters ; still I have managed so 

far to get along. My business is every day increasing, and will 

soon begin to yield a regular income. I consider my prospects 

VOL. II. 18 



410 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

even better than I anticipated ; and have no doubt that after the 
first year, I shall find my profession worth at least $10,000 per 
annum. I have already business which will yield $5,000 or 
$6,000 ; though, as I said before, most of the fees are not yet 
quite ripe ; but they will all come in good time, no doubt. I 
believe I have got through the worst of it, and look forward for 
better times. 

We have had a terrible winter. I never knew so much incle- 
ment weather in one season. It has been raining now for four 
or five days. My health has not been as good duriug the winter 
as usual. I have suffered severely from inflammatory cold ; but 
I am now much better. Mary and the children are quite well, 
and dear Abby as well as we could expect ; though she suffers 
much from her coagh. I think as soon as we get fairly into our 
spring months, she will improve rapidly. She is certainly a 
great deal better than when she arrived. 

How delighted we should all be, if we could see you and dear 
L. to night ! I long to pop in upon you at New Bedford, and 
surprise you in your parochial labors. It is with the deepest 
regret that I am compelled to abandon the idea of paying you 
all a visit this summer ; but it is out of the question for me to 
go, and Mary says she won't go without me. Abby and Mary 
write so often, that I shall not attempt to tell you any news ; so, 
with much love to my dear sister, I am 

Your affectionate brother, 

Seaegent. 



TO HIS YOUNGER SISTER. 

LONGWOQD, near Natchez, Aug. 20, 1846. 

My Dear Sister: — 

Notwithstanding I have pretty much surrendered 
to Mary all my old correspondence, yet I cannot refrain from 
enjoying, occasionally, this great pleasure of communing directly 
with those I love. I came up from New Orleans the first of 
the week, quite sick. I had an attack of fever and ague ; and 
in consequence of neglect, it became troublesome. As soon 
»3 I got here, however, I went to bed, and took lieavy doses of 



LETTERS. 4H 

qninine, which soon routed the fever. I am now quite weU 
again, except great debility, but this will, I trust, soon follow 
the fever. New Orleans has been entirely healthy so far ; but 
is one of the most unpleasant places to dwell in during the 
summer on the whole Continent. It is excessively warm, so 
damp that you seem all the time in a steam-bath, and for rare 
odors, it excels the famous city of Cologne. The fresh air and 
green trees of Longwood have revived me amazingly both in body 
and mind. I was deliglited to rejoin Mary and the children 
whom I found much improved, especially the latter. The little 
rascals are its fat as they can be, and talk, and play, from mor- 
ning till night. Geordie talks now almost as well as Jeanie. 
They are both very fond of me, and with the help of an occa- 
sional bribe in the shape of candy, I quite divide with their 
mother the empire over them. Dear little things, they are a 
source of infinite happiness, and I do not know how I should 
live without them. When a house has once been brightened by 
the presence of children, how desolate and gloomy it must seem 
without them. T am delighted to hear such glowing accounts, 
from all quarters, of my little namesake, who, I learn, grows 
rapidly, both in stature and in grace. Poor little fellow, I regret 
to learn he has suffei-ed so much sickness, and trust he will soon 
outgrow it. Abby writes that he resembles Geordie somewhat. 
G. is as bluff, frank, fine a specimen of the Anglo-Sason race as 
you will finti in ten States. I would give anything in the world 
to see my little namesake, indeed to see you all. It has befen 
a terrible disappointment both to Mary and myself, that we 
cannot visit Portland this summer. However, I shall continue 
to hope until our wishes are accomplished. 

Abby writes us from New Bedford that the doctor attributes 
her cough to a disease of her throat, and not consumption. God 
grant it may be so, for then we can entertain some reasonable 
hopes of her speedy recovery. * * * For myself, I have, 
of course, a pretty hard time of it the first year in a new place, 
which was no more than I expected. But my professional pros- 
pects are excellent, and, if my health is preserved, I have not 
the slightest doubt of being able, in a very few years, to restor« 



412 MEMOIR OF S. 85. PRENTISS. 

my fortunes. "Write me occasionally, my dear Anna, for I can- 
not bear to give up your correspondence entirely, though I 
know your letters to Mary are the same thing. Kiss little 
Seargent, and tell him his uncle loves him very much. Mrs. 
Williams and all the rest join me in remembrance to Mr. S., 
and oceans of love to you. 

Your affectionate brother, 

Seaegekt. 

It must be a very young reader of this memoir who has 
forgotten the grand outburst of American sympathy and 
beneficence, early in 184t, caused by the great famine in 
Ireland. Among the innumerable public meetings called all 
over the country, in aid of the starving Irish, one of the 
earliest was held by the citizens of New Orleans. It was 
presided over by the Governor of the State, and was first 
addressed by Henry Clay, then on a visit to the South- 
west. Mr. Prentiss next spoke. The following is a brief 
report of his address : 

Fellow Citizens: — 

It is no ordinary cause which has brought together 
this vast assemblage on the present occasion. We have met, not 
to prepare ourselves for political contests, nor to celebrate tho 
achievements of those gallant men who have planted our victo- 
rious standards in the heart of an enemy's country. We have 
assembled, not to respond to shouts of triumph from the West, 
but to answer the cry of want and suffering which comes from 
the East. The Old World stretches out her arms to the New. 
The starving parent supphcates the young and vigorous child for 
bread. There lies upon the other side of the wide Atlantic a 
beautiful island, famous in story and in song. Its area is not so 
great as that of the State of Louisiana, while its population ia 
almost half that of the Union. It has given to the world more 
than its share of genius and of greatness. It has been prolific in 
statesmen, warriors, and poets. Its brave and generous sons 



ADDRESS IN BEHALF OF IRELAND. 413 

have fought successfully all battles but their own. In wit and 
humor it has no equal ; while its harp, like its history, moves to 
tears by its sweet but melancholy pathos. Into this fair region, 
God has seen lit to send the most terrible of all those fearful 
ministers who fulfill His inscrutable decrees. The earth has failed 
to yield her increase; the common mother has forgotten her 
offspring, and her breast no longer affords them their accus- 
tomed nourishment. Famine, gaunt and ghastly famine, has 
seized a nation with its strangling grasp ; and unhappy Irelaod, 
in the sad woes of the present, forgets for a moment the gloomy 
history of the past. We have assembled, fellow citizens, to 
express our sincere sympathy for the sufferings of our brethren, 
and to unite in efforts for their alleviation. This is one of those 
cases in which we may, without impiety, assume, as it were, the 
function of Providence. Who knows but what one of the very 
objects of this great calamity is to test the benevolence and 
worthiness of us upon whom unlimited abundance has been 
showered. In the name, then, of common humanity, I invoke 
your aid in behalf of starving Ireland. He who is able, and will 
not give for such a sacred purpose, is not a man, and has no 
right to wear the form. ■ He should be sent back to nature's 
mint, and re-issued as a counterfeit on humanity of nature's 
baser metal. 

Oh ! it is terrible, that in this beautiful world, which the good 
God has given us, and in which there is plenty for us all, 
men should die of starvation! In these days, when improve- 
ments in agriculture and the mechanical arts have quadrupled 
the productiveness of labor; when it is manifest that the earth 
produces every year more than sufficient to clothe and feed all 
her thronging millions ; it is a shame and a disgrace, that the 
word starvation has not long since become obsolete, or only 
retained to explain the dim legends of a barbarous age. Yon 
who have never been beyond the precincts of our own favored 
country; you, more especially, who have always lived in this 
great valley of the Mississippi — the cornucopia of the world — 
who see each day poured into the lap of your city, food sufficient 
to assuage the hunger of a nation, can form but an imperfect 



414 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

idea of the horrors of famine ; of the terror which strikes men's 
souls when they cry in vain for bread. "When a man dies of dis- 
ease, he alone endures the pain. Around his pillow are gathered 
sympathising friends, who, if they cannot keep back the deadly 
messenger, cover his face and conceal the horrors of his visage, 
as he delivers his stern mandate. 

In battle, in the fullness of his pride and strength, little recks 
the soldier whether the hissing bullet sing his sudden requiem, 
or ♦the cords of life are severed by the sharp steel. But he who 
dies of hunger wrestles alone, day after day, with his grim and 
unrelenting enemy. He has no friends to cheer him in the terri- 
ble conflict; for if he had friends, how could he die of hunger? 
He has not the hot blood of the soldier to maintain him ; for his 
foe, vampire-like, has exhausted his veins. Famine comes not 
up like a brave enemy, storming, by a sudden onset, the fortress 
that resists. Famine besieges. He draws his lines around the 
doomed garrison; he cuts off all supplies; he never summons to 
surrender, for he gives no quarter. Alas! for poor human 
nature, how can it sustain this fearful warfare ? Day by day 
the blood recedes ; the flesh deserts ; the muscles relax, and the 
sinews grow powerless. At last the. mind, which at first had 
bravely nerved itself for the contest, gives way under the myste- 
rious influences that govern its union with the body. Then he 
begins to doubt the existence of an overruling Providence ; ho 
hates his fellow men, and glares upon them with the longings of 
a canuibal, and, it may be, dies blaspheming ! 

Who will hesitate to give his mite to avert such awful results? 
Surely not you, citizens of New Orleans, ever famed for your 
deeds of benevolence and charity. Freely have your hearts and 
purses opened, heretofore, to the call of suffering humanity. 
Nobly did you respond to oppressed Greece and struggling 
Poland. "Within Erin's borders is an enemy more cruel than the 
Turk; more tyrannical than the Russian. Bread is the only 
weapon that can conquer him. Let us, then, load ships with 
this glorious munition, and, in the name of our common human- 
ity, wage war against this despot Famine. Let us, in God's 
name, " cast our bread upon the waters," and if we are selfish 



DEATH OF HIS SISTER ABBT. 415 

enough to desire it, we may recollect the promise, that it shall 
return to ns after many days. 

If benevolence be not a sufficient incentive to action, we 
should be generous from common decency; for out of this 
famine we are adding millions to our fortunes. Every article 
of food, of which we have a superabundance, has been doubled 
in value, by the very distress we are now called upon to alle- 
viate. 

We cannot do less, in common honesty, than to divide among 
the starving poor of Ireland a portion of the gains we are 
making out of their misfortunes. Give, then, generously and 
freely. Eecollect that, in so doing, you are exercising one of the 
most god-like qualities of your nature, and, at the same time, 
enjoying one of the greatest luxuries of life. "We ought to thank 
our Maker that he has permitted us to exercise, equally with 
Himself, that noblest of even the Divine attributes, benevolence. 
Go home and look at your family, smiling in rosy health, and 
then think of the pale, famine-pinched cheeks of the poor chil- 
dren of Ireland ; and I know you will give according to your 
store, even as a bountiful Providence has given to you — not 
grudgingly, but with an open hand ; for the quality of benevo- 
lence, like that of mercy, 

" Is not strained, 
It droppeth as the gentle rain from Heaven, 
Upon the place beneath : it is twice blessed. 
It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes." * 

Mr. Prentiss was just at this time in a no unfitting mood 
to make such a touching appeal. He was expecting, 
every moment to hear of the death of his eldest sister. f 



* I omit the closing and, as it was delivered, most beautiful portion of the address, 
as it is entirely spoilt by the reporter, who, Mr. P. naively observed to me, " doubt- 
less knew much better than himself what he meant to say." 

t Abby Lewis Prentiss died on Saturday, the 80th of January, 1847, at the aga 
of thirty-two. Long and wearisome sufiFerings, such as usually attend pulmonary 
disease, preceded the final struggle. It was towards the close of a stormy winter's 



416 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

Tie sad intelligence arrived a few days after ; and the fol- 
lowing letters give some, though but a faint, conception of 
its effect upon him. It was the first death that had 
occurred in the family, since that of his father. 

TO HIS MOTHER. 

New Obleans, Feb. 11, 1847. 
My Dear, Beloved Mother : — 

My heart bleeds to the core, as I sit down to min- 
gle my tears with yours, at the terrible misfortune which has 
befallen us. We have just received George's letter, informing us 
of the sad event ; which, however, we had for some time been 
anticipating. Still, though I thought I was prepared for it, I 
cannot realize that it is all over, that I shall never again, in this 
world, see our dear, dear Abby ; so good, so affectionate, so re- 
signed. She was the best of us all, and gladly would I have 
given my own life to preserve hers. But we have conso- 
lation, even in our extreme grief; for she was so good, that we 
know she is now in Heaven, and freed from all care, unless it be 
that her affectionate heart is still troubled for us, whom she 
loved so well. We can dwell with satisfaction, after we have 
overcome the first sharpness of our grief, upon her angel-like 
qualities, which made her, long before she died, fit for the Hea- 
ven where she now is. But what shall I say to you, my dearest 
mother? How shall I express the deep sympathy I feel for 
your loss, and your sorrow ? All I can say is, that I partake of 
both. You have lost the purest, noblest, and best of daughters ; 



day, that she gently '■'■fell asle&p.^* A little while before, she had imagined herself 
in a " very beautiful region," which her tongue in vain attempted to describe, sur- 
rounded by those she loved. Among her last half-conscious utterances, was th« 
name of her brother Seargent. The next morning witnessed a scene of such glo- 
rious beauty and loveliness as made the presence of Death seem almost incre- 
dible. The snow, and mist, and gloom had ceased ; and as the sun rose, clear and 
resplendent, every visible object— the earth, trees, houses— shone as if enamelled 
With gold and pearls and precious stones. It was the Lord's day ; and well did 
the aspect of Nature symbolize Him who is '■'■the Besurrection and the Life^ 



LETTERS. 411 

I, a sister, who never, to my knowledge, did a selfish act, or 
uttered a selfish thought. We will weep together then, my 
dear mother, and when our tears shall he dried, we will remem- 
ber the virtues of our dear departed one, and find consolation 
even in our grief. You, my dear mother, must remember, too, 
that you have children still spared to you, who love you with 
all their hearts, and who will strive, if possible, by increased 
aflTection, to make amends for the loss they cannot supply ; and 
not only children, but grandchildren, who, though they have 
never seen, know and love you, as if they had always lived 
with you. Jeanie and Geordie speak of you every day, talk 
to your portrait, and love you as dearly as they do me. I know 
then, my dear mother, you will gather consolation, both in 
thinking of the goodness and virtues of the dear one who is 
gone, and of the affection and devotion of those who remain, 
^o children on earth ever loved a mother more than yours love 
you. If it be possible for me next summer, I will bring on 
Mary and the children to see you. I almost entertain the hope 
of being able to persuade you to come and live with us. Mary 
and I would be so delighted, and then it would be everything 
for the dear children. But I cannot write more now. I will 
write again shortly. God bless you my dear mother, and give 
you strength to bear up under this great affliction. 

Your affectionate, and devoted son, 

Seaegent. 



TO HIS SISTEB ANNA. 

New Orleans, Feb, 12, 1847. 

My Deaeest Sister : — 

I received yesterday George's letter, giving ua 
the m.elancholy information of the death of our beloved sister. 
Though we have been for some time anticipating this sad news, 
still I was unprepared for it, and my heart is overwhelmed 
with grief. I cannot bring my mind to realize the terrible 
truth, that I shall never again in this world see our dear Abby, 
or be able to offer her any more tokens of my affection. Oli ! she 
was so good, so pure, so unselfish, so needed in this world, that 

VOL. n. IS'*: 



418 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

it seems very hard she should have been taken from us. But 1 
do not doubt it is better for the dear one herself, for she is in 
Heaven, beyond the reach of pain or care; and is even now 
looking back with pity and affectionate compassion upon our 
sufferings. How sweetly shall we cherish her memory ! It is a 
melancholy pleasure to recollect that we have always lived toge- 
ther in the bonds of love and affection. Never do I remember 
an unkind word or thought between dear Abby and any of us. 
"We can meditate upon her virtues, and her sweet unspotted life, 
without a pang of regret. And after all, my dear sister, she 
has only commenced her journey a few days before us. We 
shall soon travel the same road ; would to God, we were all 
as well prepared. Indeed it is for the living and not for the 
dead, that we have cause to grieve. Alas! for dear mother, 
my heart bleeds for her, and I weep for her, more than for the 
dear one, who has gone to be an angel. What will poor 
mother do in her now desolate house? May a kind Provident 
support her in this great affliction. Mary and I both wrote to 
her yesterday. Mary also wrote to you, but I was too much 
indisposed to do so. I shall try and persuade mother to come 
and live with me. We are all w^ell, though I have suffered a 
good deal from colds. My heart is too full to write more. I 
will write again ere long. All join in affectionate remembrance 
to you and Mr. S. God bless you, my dearest sister. 

Your affectionate brother, 

Seargent. 



TO HIS MOTHER. 

New Orleans, March 16, 184T. 

My Dearest Mother : — 

I wrote yon about a month since, I hardly know 
what, for my heart was full of grief. We had just received the 
sad news of the departure of our dear beloved Abby. It was 
the severest blow I have ever experienced. I knew not before 
how much I loved her — how worthy she was of love. I do 
believe she was the kindest, the noblest, the most unselfish being 
that Could be found in the whole world. I cannot yet bring 



LETTERS. 419 

myself to realize the truth. I cannot bear to think I shall nevet 
again see her pure, mild face, or listen to her sweet and affec- 
tionate voice. But one thing we are sure of, my dear, dear 
mother ; wherever the good go in the next world, there she has 
gone. It required but little cliange to make an angel of her. 
It is not for her I grieve, but for ourselves, and most of all, for 
you, my dear, good, revered mother. You will suffer most from 
this dispensation of Providence. All the rest of us had left you; 
poor Abby alone remained to comfort and support you. "Why 
could not the blow have fallen elsewhere — upon me. But God's 
will be done. He has chosen dear Abby from the flock ; and 
surely none was fitter for the sacrifice. I should have written 
again before this, but I have not been well, and have put it off 
from day to day. Mary wrote a few days since. She feels tho 
loss as deeply as any of us. She loved Abby most dearly and 
sincerely ; and she loves you, too, my dear mother, as sincerely 
as if she were your own daughter. 

We have both set our hearts upon your coming to live with us. 
We have three sweet children, two of whom already know their 
grandmamma at Portland, as well as they do their mother. For 
the present I will suggest no plans, nor say anything further on 
the subject. But you must reflect upon it, and make up your 
mind to come and live with your children and grand-children. 
I think it will make you young again, to have the little ones 
climbing into your lap, and listening to your affectionate instruc- 
tions. My business is increasing, and my prospects are most 
cheering. Mary and the children are very well, and join me 
in the most affectionate love and regard. 

Your devoted and affectionate son, 

Seaegent. 



TO THE SAME. 

New Orleans, April 24, 1847. 

My Dear Mother : — 

I HAVE intended writing for a week past, but have 
put it off, hoping to hear from you first. It has been some time 



420 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

since we got a letter from either George or Anna ; but I will not 
wait any longer. I was very glad that you went down to New- 
buryport, and was with A. during her illness. It must have 
been a relief to you, and a great comfort to her. You do not 
know, my dear mother, how much my heart yearns towards you 
during these sad times ; how I long to be with you, and to try 
and comfort you by dividiug with you your grief. I know, how- 
ever, that you have sources of comfort and consolation far supe- 
rior to any human sympathy; and I trust, even now, that you 
can look upon the departure of our dearest and most beloved 
one with calmness and resignation, and feel that, in truth, what 
is our loss is her gain. "With the exception of yourself, dear 
mother, she was, of all our family circle, the ripest for heaven, 
the best prepared to enter her Father's mansion. Our grief, 
then, is not for her, but for ourselves ; and you, most of all, dear 
mother, must miss her, and feel her loss. "Well, you must let 
your children, who remain, and who all love and venerate you 
beyond any other human being, strive, in some degree, to supply 
your loss. I shall, if no accident prevents, come on to Portland 
in July, when we will consider what will be most agreeable to 
you, and most conducive to your future comfort and happiness ; 
and whatever that may be, it must be done. I regret that I 
cannot bring Mary and the children with me. I should be so 
proud to show them to you. I cannot tell exactly when I shall 
start. It will depend somewhat on my business, but it will be 
some time in July, and I shall take the quickest route, as my only 
object in making the journey is to see you. I got a letter some 
time ago from S. He is still at his mining business, and writes 
in much better spirits than before. He seems to think that he 
will succeed in realizing something out of his labors. Mary and 
the children are in most excellent health, and I am better than 
I have been through the winter. Little Seargent is a perfect pat- 
tern of health, beauty and good behavior. I have almost a 
notion of packing him in my trunk and bringing him with me, I 
wish so much for you to see him. "We have had a visit from 
Mrs. "Williams, who stayed with us several weeks ; she returned 
about two weeks ago. I think Mary and the children will go 



ADDRESS TO THE RETURNED VOLUNTEERS. 421 

and stay with her, while I make my trip North. They join me 
in much love to you. Mary will write in a day or two. God 
bless and comfort yon, ray dear mother. So pray I every day. 
Your affectionate and devoted son, 

Seaegextc 

The demands of business and other canses rendered it 
impossible for him to visit the North. " It is," he writes to 
his mother, " one of the most painful disappointments of my 
life, I had anticipated so much sorrowful pleasure in the 
visit. I am so anxious to see you, to assure you of my love 
and affection ; to sympathize with you in your loneliness 
since dear Abby became an angel. Indeed, my dear, dear 
mother, I feel it almost wicked not to come as I promised. 
But still I cannot do it. I am compelled to give it up. I 
shall spend the summer principally in the city." 

But neither affliction, the pressure of business, nor pecu- 
niary embarrassments prevented his being a most interested 
and thoughtful observer of public affairs. Although in 
common with his party generally, he strongly disapproved 
of the manner in which the country had been precipitated 
into a war with Mexico, he still considered it the part of 
patriotism to sustain our gallant army when the conflict had 
become unavoidable. Nor could he help admiring the bril- 
liant achievements of the forces under General Taylor and 
General Scott. At a public reception of the volunteers 
who, returning from General Taylor's army, passed through 
New Orleans in June, 184t, he delivered the following 
address : 

Brave Volunteers : — The people of New Orleans, filled with 
admiration for the patriotic and hercic achievements of our 
citizen soldiers, are desirous of expressing the sentiments of joy, 
pride and affection, with which they hail their return to the 
arms of a grateful country. I am their honored organ on the 



422 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. * 

occasion, and most warmly do I sympathize with their feelings, 
and participate in their wishes. 

Welcome, then, gallant volunteers ! ye war-worn soldiers, wel- 
come home ! The heart of Louisiana warms towards yon. 
Welcome ! thrice welcome from your glorious hattle-fields ! In 
the name of the citizens of New Orleans, I greet and embrace 
you all. 

No longer do you tread upon a hostile shore, nor gaze upon 
foreign skies. Useless now are your sharp swords and unerring 
rifles. No lurking foe waylays you in the impenetrable chappa- 
ral, or among the gloomy gorges of the mountain. Henceforth 
your path will be ambushed only by friends. You will find them 
more difficult than the enemy to quell. They will pour upon 
you volleys of grape as you pass — not the grape whose iron clus- 
ters grew so luxuriantly on the hill-sides of Monterey, or along 
the ravines of Buena Vista, and whose juice was the red blood — 
but the grape which comes from the battery of the banquet! 

A year has not elapsed since I saw most of you bivouacked on 
the old battle-field below the city, drawing inspiration from its 
mighty memories, and dreaming, perchance, of those great 
achievements which you were so soon to accomplish. Since 
then you have passed through all the vicissitudes of a soldier's 
life — the camp, the march, the battle, and the victory. You have 
played your parts nobly. You have gone far beyond your own 
promises or the country's expectations. You have borne, with- 
out a murmur, the ordinary hardships of military life — hunger, 
fatigue, and exposure. You blenched not when death came in 
the sad shape of disease, and struck down your comrades around 
you ; you submitted cheerfully to discipline, and converted the 
raw material of individual bravery into the terrible, irresistible 
power of combined courage. But it was upon legitimate battle- 
fields you gathered those unfading laurels upon which your 
countrymen will ever gaze, as they do now, with grateful pride. 

Our little army of regulars, as they well deserved to do, had 
already plucked the first fruits of the war. On the victorioui 
fields of Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma they sustained their 
own high character, and nobly illustrated American skill and 



ADDRESS TO THE RETURNED VOLUNTEERS. 423 

valor. They scourged the enemy from the Eio Grande; and 
then, reinforced by the volunteers, who flocked to their coun- 
try's standard, their great captain meditated the conquest of the 
stronghold of Monterey. There, like an eagle on his eyrie, stood 
the mountain king. Thither the eyes of the nation turned in 
eager expectation. All hearts palpitated for the result. Now 
was our national prowess to be tested— now we were to ascer- 
tain whether we could cast back into the teeth of European 
generals and European diplomatists the taunts which they had 
heaped upon our citizen soldiers. They had told us that our 
Eepublic was weak, notwithstanding its great population and 
unbounded resources. They said we had no mihtary strength ; 
that our army and navy, though skillful and brave, were but a 
cypher compared with the mighty armaments of the Old World ; 
and that our unpractised citizens could never make efficient sol- 
diers. Soon came the ever-glorious storming of the mountain 
fastness, and the problem was solved. The nation's heart beat 
free ; and joy for the present, confidence in the future, pervaded 
the land. Indeed it was a great and glorious achievement, and 
in its moral effect, both at home and abroad, perhaps the most 
important of the war. It gave the country complete confidence 
in the volunteers— the volunteers full reliance upon themselves. 
From that day forth they became veterans. Time will not per- 
mit me to recite the vivid and heart-stirring incidents of that 
memorable and wonderful conflict. On one side of the city, the 
regulars fought, as they always do, with skill, with bravery and 
success ; they did all that was expected of them— their previous 
reputation rendered it impossible to do more. On the other side 
the volunteers drew their maiden swords. Never before had 
they experienced a grasp stronger than that of friendship; now 
they stretched forth their hands and grappled with death. On, 
on pressed these unfledged warriors — these men of civil life, 
these citizen soldiers: their bright blades flashed before them 
like tongues of flame. Up the hill-side, through the streets 
swept by the raking cannon, over barricade and battery, their 
advancing banners, streaming like thunder-clouds against the 
wind, rustled in the battle breeze like the pinions of an eagle 



424 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

pouncing on his quarry. All know the glorious result. The 
enemy, though he fought bravely for his firesides and his altars, 
and in the midst of his supposed impregnable defences, shrunk 
from such fiery valor. The day was onrs, and the Republic 
acknowledges its debt of gratitude to the gallant volunteers. 

Welcome, then, thrice welcome, victors of Monterey! 

But the fortune of the war determined that your conduct and 
valor should be tested upon a yet bloodier field. At Buena 
Yista you met, face to face, the Genius of the battle, even as he 
appeared to the Warrior Bard — 

*' Lo ! where the giant on the mountain stands, 
His blood-red tresses deep'ning in the sun, 
With death-shot glowing in his fiery hands 
And eye that scorcheth all it glares upon — 
Restless it rolls — now fixed — and now anon 
Flashing afar ; and at his iron feet 
Destruction cowers, to mark what deeds are done." 

Under that hot gaze, in the fierce conflict where desperate 
courage was put to its utmost proof, all fame unites in saying 
that you covered yourselves with immortal honor. In a pitched 
battle against brave and veteran troops, outnumbering you four 
to one, during two days you made successful contest — you stood 
a living dyke, and again and again poured upon you in vain the 
fiery torrent. '"Twere worth ten years of peaceful life" to 
have witnessed you repulsing the audacious squadrons of the 
enemy, as, with pennons flying, and serried lances, they came 
thundering upon your unflinching ranks. Often in the changing 
currents of the moody fight, when the fortune of the day, rent 
from our standard, fluttered like torn canvass in the gale, you 
seized and fastened it back in its proper place. But we should 
do injustice did we not remember on this occasion those glorious 
comrades without whose co-operation your valor would have 
proved in vain — I mean the artillery, those true sons of thunder, 
who on that day seemed to scorn^to use Jove's counterfeits, and 
hurled his genuine bolts! Never were cannon served with 
greater coolness or more fatal precision. At each discharge, 
whole columns were cut down — 



ADDRESS TO THE RETURNED VOLUNTEERS. 425 

«« Even as they fell, in files they lay, 
Like the mower's grass at the close of day, 
When his work is done on ttie level plain." 

Honor, then, to your brave comrades ! We wish they were here 
to share your welcome, heroes of Buena Yista. 

But you have still another claim upon our regard — the lovi 
and confidence of your General. To have your names associatec 
with his, is itself renown. He has achieved a world-wide fame 
The whole nation looks upon him with admiration and affection 
and twenty milhons of people love and confide in him, and right 
well does the brave old man deserve these great honors. A 
true patriot, he has never obtruded himself upon the country : 
when his services were needed, then he rendered them. The 
nation knew not the treasure it possessed until the emergencies 
of the last year developed it. Now we know we have that gift 
of a century — a General cool, sagacious, prudent, brave, and 
humane ; capacious in resources, simple in habits, modest in 
manners, and, above all, possessed of the rare capacity of infus- 
ing into those around him his own indomitable courage and 
determination. These are the qualities which have rendered 
General Taylor and liis armies invincible. They are of the true 
old Roman sort — such as might have belonged to a consul in the 
best days of the Ancient Republic. It is no small honor to 
have fought under the eye and received the commendation of 
such a soldier. "Welcome, then, thrice welcome ! companions of 
the great captain in those wonderful engagements whose rapidity 
and brilliancy have astonished the world. Gentlemen, you have 
before you a proud and happy destiny. Yours have been no 
mercenary services. Prompted by patriotism alone, you went 
forth to fight the battles of your country. You now voluntarily 
return to the pursuits of civil life. Presently you will be 
engaged in your ancient occupations. But 3'ou will not be 
without the meet reward of patriotic service. Your neighbors 
will regard you with respect and affection. Your children will 
feel proud whenever they hear mention made of Monterey and 
Buena Vista, and a grateful nation has already inscribed your 
names upon its annals. Indeed, it is a noble sight, worthy of 



426 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

the Genius of tlas great Republic, to behold, at the call of the 
country, whole armies leap forth in battle array; and then, when 
their services are no longer needed, fall quietly back and com - 
mingle again with the communities from whence they came. 
Thus the dark thunder-cloud, at nature's summons, marshals its 
black battalions and lowers in the horizon ; but at length, its 
lightnings spent, its dread artillery silenced, its mission finished, 
disbanding its frowning ranks, it melts away into the blue ether, 
and the next morning you will find it glittering in the dew drops 
among the flowers, or assisting, with its kindly moisture, the 
growth of the young and tender plants. 

Great and happy country, where every citizen can be at once 
turned into an eflTective soldier ; every soldier converted forth- 
with into a peaceful citizen. 

Our regular troops are unsurpassed for skill and courage. Led 
by their gallant and accomplished oflBcers, they are invincible. 
All that science and valor can do, they have achieved. At Vera 
Cruz and Cerro Gordo they have plucked new laurels worthy to 
be entwined among those gathered on the fields of Palo Alto 
and Resaca de la Raima. 

But it is their business to be brave ; it is their profession to 
fight. We honor the army ; but we look upon our citizen sol- 
diers with a different and peculiar pride. They are part and 
parcel of ourselves. They have taught us. the secret of our vast 
strength. We now know the mighty nerve and muscle of the 
Republic. We evoke armies as if by magic, rapidly as they 
came forth from the sowing of the dragon's teeth; at a nod, 
they disappear, as though the earth had swallowed them up. 
But they are not gone. You will find them in the forest, in the 
field, in the workshop, in the chambers of the sick, at the bar, 
in the councils of tho country. They have returned to their old 
professions and pursuits. Let but the trumpet sound, and again 
they spring up, a crop of armed men. Proudly do we tell the 
world that we have, whenever occasion calls, two millions of 
warriors like those who stormed at Monterey, and conquered at 
Buena Vista. Welcome, then, citizen soldiers I Welcome soldier 
citizens ! 



ADDRESS TO THE RETURNED VOLUNTEERS. 427 

But, alas ! the joy of our greeting is mingled with sorrow. 
We gaze upon your thinned ranks, and seek in vain for many 
beloved and familiar faces. Why come they not from the battle- 
field ? Why meet they not the embraces of their loving friends? 
^ year ago I saw them march forth beneatli their country's 
oanner, full of lusty life, of buoyant hearts, and noble emula- 
lion. Where are they now ? Where is brave McKee, impetu- 
ous Yell, intrepid Hardin, chivalrous Clay, and gallant Watson, 
with hundreds of their noble comrades, whom we meet not 
here? Ah! I see it all— your laurel wreaths are thickly 
entwined with cypress— the dead cannot come to the banquet ! 
Alas ! alas, for the noble dead ! If we cannot welcome, we will 
weep for them. Our tears fall fast and free; but they flow 
rather for the living than the dead ; for the nation that has lost 
such worthy sons ; for the desolate fire-sides, bereaved of their 
cherished and loved ones; for the bowed father, the heart- 
broken mother, the sobbing sister, the frantic wife, and the 
wondering children. For them we weep, but not for the heroic 
dead. We envy their fate. Gloriously did they die, those who 
rendered up their souls in battle. They fulfilled the highest 
duty mankind owes to this world: they died for their country. 
They fell upon stricken fields, which their own valor had 
already half won. The earthquake voice of victory was in their 
ears, and their dying gaze was turned proudly upon the tri- 
umphant stars and stripes. Honor, eternal honor, to the brave 
who baptized their patriotism in their blood. 

But there are others who equally claim a place in our sad 
remembrance. I mean those who died from disease; whose 
fiery hearts were extinguished in the dull camp or on the 
gloomy march. It is easy to die in battle. The spirit is stirred 
to a courageous madness by the rushing squadrons, the roaring 
cannon, and the clashing steel. All the fierce instincts of our 
nature are aroused, and the soldier seeks for death as the bride- 
groom seeks his bride. Besides 



'• Fame is there to tell who bleeds, 
And Honor's eye on daring deeds." 



428 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

But to waste away with sickness — to be crushed by the blows 
of an unseen enemy, with whom you cannot grapple ; to know 
. death is approaching slowly but surely ; to feel that your name 
will occupy no place on the bright scroll of fame — thus, without 
any of the pride and rapture of the strife, to meet bravely the 
inevitable tyrant, is the highest test of the soldier's courage, the 
strongest proof of the patriot's devotion. Honor, then, immortal 
honor, to the brave who fell, not on the battle-field, but before 
the shafts of disease. 

Gallant gentlemen, you will soon leave us for your respective 
homes. Everywhere fond and grateful hearts await you. You 
will have to run the gauntlet of friendship and affection. The 
bonfires are already kindling upon the hills. In every grove and 
pleasant arbor tlie feast is spread. Thousands of sparkling eyes 
are watching eagerly for your return. Tears will fill them when 
they seek in vain among your thinned ranks for many a loved 
and familiar face ; but through those tears will shine the smiles 
of joy and welcome, even as the rays of the morning sun ghtter 
through the dew-drops which the sad night hath wept. 

Again, in the name of the citizens of New Orleans, I bid you 
welcome. When you^ leave us, you will carry with you our 
admiration, our gratitude, and our affection. . 

Mr. Prentiss was, however, by no means blind, as an 
extract from one of his letters, written about this time, will 
show, to the political evils which were likely to spring out 
of the Mexican war. How far his fears have been verified, 
the reader can judge. *- 

Before you get this, you will have heard of General Scott's 
new victory over the Mexicans. I pity the poor devils, they 
defend their country so miserably. It is c^tain that the Anglo- 
Saxon is a warlike race ; but I fear serious evils will result from 
this successful development of its military instincts. Indeed, 
the evils are already obvious. The toga gives place to the 
sword. Forty years of civil service in the councils of the 
nation are held as naught, when compared with a few weeks oi 



LETTERS. 429 

months of successful generalship. What a spawn of prosperous 
demagogues will crawl out of the ooze of these subsiding 
armies ! From a corporal to a general, they will claim all the 
honors and offices of the government. I admire the character 
of General Taylor as much as any man; but I have great con- 
tempt for the giddiness of the people, who wish to make him 
President for no other reason* than that of his being a successful 
warrior. I presume he is the best specimen of a general to be 
found ; but to put aside all the statesmen of the country for the 
purpose of placing him in an office, in which his military capa- 
city can be of no service, is worse than ridiculous. However, I 
feel but little interest in politics, now-a-days, and care but little 
what the silly sovereigns do. 

TO HIS SISTER ANNA. 

LONGWOOD, September 5, 1847. 

My Dear Sister : 

I believe my neglect is past apologizing for ; and 

I shall not, therefore, attempt any useless excuses. The fact is, 

I have an increasing horror of writing, and can hardly bring 

myself to the most necessary correspondence. I avoid or 

postpone it till I get perfectly ashamed of myself. Fortunately. 

Mary makes up in some degree for my deficiencies. I have been 

here about three weeks, driven from Kew Orleans by the 

yellow fever, which is now raging there with fatal violence. 

It seems to be now at its worst, and probably never prevailed to 

so great an extent. This has interfered a good deal with my 

plans, as I had intended spending most of the summer in the 

city. Mary and the children came up about the middle of July. 

It was fortunate they did. Mary had half determined to stay 

there, too, so that the children might become acclimated. It 

turns out that the fever prevails with peculiar virulence in the 

vicinity of our residence. Two of the servants left there have 

Already had it, but fortunately recovered. Of course, I shall 

not go down until it subsides, which, I hope, will be soon : for 

I am anxious fiSfeget back to my labors. True, I am enjoying 

myself here, but it is too easy a life for me. 



430 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

Longwood is a sweet, quiet place, and we are all enjoying 
excellent health. The children have improved wonderfully, and 
are as healthy as they can possibly be. When we left the city, 
they all looked pale ; but now their faces are brown and rosy, 
and they are as wild as so many little deer. Seargy looks 
like a young prince. Geordie puts me in mind every day of 
grandfather Lewis, and has the same vivacity and quickness 
for which he was so remarkable. I have no doubt, if you 
were to see him, you would recognize him at once from his 
Lewis look. How delighted I should be to see my little name- 
sake at Newburyport. I expect you and Mary would have 
quite a batlle upon the relative merits of the two Seargents. 
"Well, perhaps, next year, we may be able to make the compari- 
son. I don't promise, but I hope it may be the case. I suppose, 
by this time, matters are all arranged in Portland. How 
delightful it will be for you to have mother living near you, 
where you will see each other two or three times every day. 
She must get a house as near yours as possible. As soon as 
anything is done, you must write me all about it. I am anxious 
to see mother fairly settled down again, as I know her mind 
will be disturbed until her new arrangements are completed. 
There is nothing new here. Natchez is as dull as a deserted 
village. Most of the fashionables are at the North. We all 
went out to Arlington the other evening to a party given to 

Mary by Mrs. B . Mary, Mrs. Williams, and all the familj 

join in much love to you, Mr. S., and the dear Httle ones. 

Your affectionate brother, 

Seargent. 



TO HIS MOTHER. 

Longwood, September 24, 1S47. 

My Dear Mother: 

We are still staying here at Longwood, waiting fo»' 
it to become healthy again in New Orleans. I^m getting tirec 
of the delay, and feel very anxious to get back to my business. 
I have lost now about two months doing nothing. It is hard tt 



LETTERS. 431 

gay "when we will be able to go down. The number of deaths 
has abated greatly, more than one-half; but this, I fear, arises, 
not from any diminution of the disease, but from want of 
subjects. I presume it will not be safe to go before the midc^le, 
perhaps, the last of October. I shall certainly not take my 
family down, till all danger is over. It has been an awful 
epidemic ; the worst that New Orleans ever experienced. 
There has been no sickness here or in Natchez, and we have all 
enjoyed remarkably good health ; the children especially are the 
heartiest little things you ever saw. Their staying here this 
summer has been of infinite service to them. I wish you could 
see them placing together. They are very fond of each other, 
and Jeanie and Geordie perfectly dote on Seargy. They are all, 
too, very fond of me — especially Geordie. They say he is my 
favorite ; but I love them all so well, that I hardly feel that I 
have any preference. I hope that your new arrangements will 
be all made before the cold weather. I am anxious to know 
whether you will spend the winter in Newburyport or New 
Bedford. Perhaps another year I can persuade you to spend 
the winter with us in New Orleans. I hope these changes will 
all prove agreeable to you, and that you will find no cause to 
regret removing from Portland. I expect, however, you will 
miss it a good deal at first, for it is a beautiful place, and asso- 
ciated with many plea^;ant memories to all our family. 



TO HIS TOIJNGEST BEOTHEE. 

New Orleans, November 6, 1847. 

My Deae Beothee : 

I have been in the city for ten days or more. I 
did not, however, bring Mary and the children with me. They 
are still at Longwood, and I shall not be able to go after them 
for a week or ten days more. I have rented a new house nearer 
my office, but it is not quite finished, and I shall not bring them 
down until they can go into it. I hear from them, however, 
every day or two. They are in most excellent health, as they 



432 MEMOI-K OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

have been, indeed, all summer. This city is perfectly healtliy, 
and one can hardly realize, in looking at the busy crowds, which 
throng the streets, that a month ago it was literally a city of the 
dead. It is truly wonderful ; not the slightest trace of the 
terrible epidemic is visible, nor does its remembrance seem to 
remain upon the mind of any one. I was delighted to hear of 
mother's removal, so safely and speedily to her new home. * * 
* * I long to see her, more than I can express, and 
especially do I desire that she see Mary and the children. My 
business prospects are very good, though not much is yet doing 
in professional way. I think I stand upon an equality with any 
of the bar in this city, and I do not doubt my business will 
increase. I have just been complimented by the solicitations of 
the principal members of the bar, and all the other professors, 
that I should take a professorship in the faculty of Law in the 
University of tliis State, rendered vacant by the death of Mr. 
Wilde. I have, however, declined acceding to their wishes, 
inasmuch as the preparation of lectures would take too much 
time from my regular professional business. The department 
they wish to assign me, embraces lectures upon International 
Law and Equity. I took the matter as quite flattering, con- 
sidering the short period of ray residence in the city. 



Deoember 8, 184T. 

I brought Mary 'and the children down from Longwood 
about a fortnight ago, expecting the new house, I had 
rented, would be ready for us. Such, however, was not the 
case. We had to go to the hotel for a w^eek. We then came 
into the house, before it was finished, and I have ever since been 
in jeopardy, among piles of disorganized furniture, and rolls of 
entangled and treacherous carpets. My whole energies have 
been directed to a practical application of the old maxim, " in 
medio tutissimus.'''' Mary, however, has presided serenely over 
chaos, and the discordant elements of housekeeping are at 
length obedient to the law of order, and have crystallized into 
their appropriate forms. We are much more pleasantly situated 



LETTERS. 433 

« 

than we have been heretofore. Our house is huilt in modern 
style, and is very comfortable. It is situated on Dauphine 
street, about two squares below Canal, is within four squares 
of my oflBce, and about six of the court. We are all in excel- 
lent health, especially the children. I shall make a desperate 
effort this winter, to lay np money enough to bring them all 
north next summer. I wish mother to see them before they 
outgrow their present graces. They are a source of wondrous 
happiness to me, and to each other ; for they are exceedingly 
affectionate ; a quahty I esteem in children above any other. I 
am delighted to hear that your little one is getting on so finely, 
and that she has already developed her carnivorous capacity, 
by cutting two teeth. Let us hear from you often this winter. 



VOL. II. 1^ 



4o4 MEMOIR OP S. S. PRENTISS. 



CHAPTER XXV. 

Hew Tear's Letter to his Mother— DiflSculty with a Grandson of Henry Clay— His 
Account of the Affair — Reminiscences of it by Balie Peyton and Richard T. Archer 
— Letter from Mr. Clay — State of the Country early in 1848 — Questions growing 
out of the Mexican War — Mr. Prentiss' Speech at a Meeting to nominate Dele- 
gates to the Whig National Convention — His Exertions during the Canyass — 
Views of Slavery and the Wilmot Proviso — Gen. Taylor — Letters. 

Mt 39. 1848. 
Here is his New Year's letter to his mother : 

New Orleans, January 1, 1S48. 

My Dear Mother : 

Again it becomes my pleasant duty to wish you a 
happy New Year, which I do most truly and aflfectionately. I 
trust it ^v^ll pass with you happily and brightly, and free from the 
clouds and troubles of the past year. Notwithstanding the irrepar- 
able loss we have experienced in the death of our dear, beloved 
Abby, still we have much to be thankful for, and I hope many 
happy days are in store for you. God grant that you may live to 
see your grandchildren and great grandchildren grow up around 
you and call you blessed, even as your own children love to do. 
Dear Abby is now a saint in heaven, and the memory of her 
virtues and goodness assuages our grief at her departure. I wish 
we could see you to-day ; how grateful it would be to our feel- 
ings to tender our congratulations in person, to kiss you with 
filial affection, and to present our dear little one for your bless- 
ing. But we are with you in feeliog, if we cannot be in person. 
Mary has already written you, and the children would write too 
if they knew how. I would give a great deal if you could see 
them, they are so healthy, so intelligent, and so pretty ; and then 



LETTERS. 435 

they love their grandma' Prentiss as mnch as if they had known 
her ever since they were born. They talk about you every day ; 
at least Jeanie and Geordie do ; little Seargy, of course, cannot 
talk yet, though he tries very hard, and makes a kind of gibber- 
ish, which may be very good sense if one could only understand 
it. He walks quite well, but is so impetuous that we have to 
watch him all the time, or he would break his neck. He is alto- 
gether the most energetic child I ever saw, and must be much 
like his dear little namesake at Newburyport. "We are all per- 
fectly well, except from colds, by which I have suffered a good 
deal. I am now, however, nearly well. We had to dine with 
us on Christmas day, Capt. Davis, Col. Peabody, and Mr. D. of 
Portland. We are all going to dine on board the ship some day 
next week ; the children are delighted with the idea. Tell Anna, 
I wish her and her sweet children and good husband, a happy 
new year; and I hope before it is through to see you all. God 
bless you, my dear mother, and protect you always. 

Your affectionate son, 

Seaegent. 

In the early part of 1848, a very painful affair occurred 
between Mr. Prentiss and a grandson of Mr. Clay. Justice 
to his memory seems to require some reference to this affair, 
and I make it the ftore readily, as it affords a fresh oppor- 
tunity of testifying against the dreadful custom of duelling. 

The whole matter is thus explained in a letter written 
after its adjustment : 

New Orleans, February 29, 1848. 

Dear Geoege : — 

I wrote you a week ago a hurried note, promising 
therein to write again in a day or two. I have not been very 
well, and have been very busy, so that I could not fulfill my 
promise at an earlier moment. I told you I had been involved 
in a personal difficulty, which was, however, settled amicably. 
As you may see it noticed in some of the newspapers, I will ex- 
plain the circumstances out of which it arose, as well as thosa 



436 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

under which it was adjusted. Some six weeks ago, I found it 
necessary, in the conduct of a cause in which I was retained, to 
animadvert, in the strongest manner, upon the conduct of Mr . 

James E , a son-in-law of Mr. Clay. ***** 

Knowing at the time the severity of my remarks, I stated in my 
argument (perhaps imprudently) that I held myself personally 

responsible for what I said. I alluded of course to Mr. E , who 

was in the city, and present during a portion of the trial. The 
court sustained me, and decided the case in my favor without 
hesitation. One of the city papers, very improperly, had given 
a professed synopsis of my argument, embracing only the vitu- 
perative portion, and that in a garbled and exaggerated form. 

Shortly after, I understood that some of E 's connections had 

determined to raise a quarrel with me, and about three or four 
weeks ago, his e^Jest son (and a very clever fellow he turned out 
to be) came down from Kentucky and challenged me. As he 
was a young man, I should have declined at once ; but he put it 
on the ground that his father was unable to attend to matters of 
that sort, and that he had a right to assume his quarrel. I hesi- 
tated still ; but, upon reflection, I came to the conclusion that I 
ought to accept. Of course, I had not the most remote idea that 
his father was not capable of attending to his own affairs, until 
I received the information as I have just stated. I appre- 
ciated, too, the young man's feelings, ajjd could not much 
blame him. * * * * j ^g^g ^jg^ convinced 

that, if I declined the challenge, a street fight would pro- 
bably ensue, as well as other diflBculties, in which my friends 
would be involved ; and I believed that it was the cheapest mode 
of disposing of the affair, to accept the call. The challenge was 
peremptory, and left me no chance for explanations, and no al- 
ternative but to fight or back out. Taking into view my position 
here ; my previous course in similar matters ; the perfect de- 
pendence of my family upon my personal exertions; and of 
those exertions upon my personal character and standing in this 
region, I determined to accept, and did accept, the challenge. I 
postponed a meeting, however, for two weeks, both for the pur- 
pose of arranging my business, and with a hope that the matter 



LETTERS. 431 

might be arranged. My wish was gratified ; by the interposition 
of some gentlemen of high character and sranding, the challenge 
was withdrawn, and the matter referred to two gentlemen, 
whose decision was doubtless very proper, and, I believe, ha? 
given general satisfocrion to all parties. I enclose you the card, 
showing how it was settled.* You will, of course, consider my 
conduct very rash, and perhaps inexcusable, in accepting a chal- 
lenge at all, in my present situation. I viewed the matter, how- 
ever, according to my best judgment, without passion, ill-feeling, 
or prejudice ; and it was my solemn belief that the welfare of 

* The following is the substance of the card : 

" The difficulty between Mr. Prentiss and Mr. E , having been referred to us 

by their respective friends for settlement, we are of opinion that Mr. Prentiss 
travelled out of the record, in the use of the oflFensive expressions complained of. 
It is, therefore, the duty of Mr. Prentiss, cheerfully, frankly, and fully to retract 

the offensive expressions, to which Mr. E has taken exception. 

B. F. Harney, 
E. Warren Moise. 
Pass Christian, February 18, 1848. 

On the part of Mr. Prentiss we agree to the above award, and retract the offen- 

Bive expressions. 

Balie Peyton, 

A. C. Bullitt. 

It is alike a duty and a pleasure to make public the following letter from Mi 

Prentiss to Mr. Johnson, written after the settlement. 

B. F. H. 

E. W. M. 

Pass Christian, February 18, 1848. 
Robert Johnson, Esq., 

Dear Sir :—l am sincerely gratified that the difficulty between Mr. 

H. C. E and myself has been amicably adjusted. From the beginning of this 

affair, I have not entertained an unkind feeling toward Mr. H. C. E . On the 

contrary, I honor and appreciate the sentiments by which he has been actuated, 
and under similar circumstances, should probably have acted as he has done. 

I can now say frankly, what might heretofore have been attributed to improper 
motives : I disclaim all personal or improper feelings in the matter out of which 
this controversy arose, as well as all knowledge or approval of the newspaper pub- 
lications in relation to my remarks. I respond fully to the high and honorable sen- 
timents, which have marked your course in this matter, as well as that of your as> 
aociates, and it gives me pleasure to acknowledge the same. 
Very respectfully, your obedient servant, 

S. S. Prentiss, 



438 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

my family, and my duty towards them as well as myself, admit- 
ted no other course. I acted solely from a sense of duty, and 
though the result might have been disastrous, I am rejoiced to 
find that it has really been fortunate, and will, in all probability, 
relieve me in future from any similar difiiculties. I think my 
course has been generally approved. 

Col. Peyton, referring to this matter, writes : 

Mr. Prentiss' patience and magnanimity, were most severely 
tested in this affair. It cannot be denied, that in arguing the 
case, out of which the difficulty arose, a case of alleged fraud, 
and involving, therefore, to some extent, personal character, he 
was carried, by the ardor of his feelings, somewhat beyond the 
evidence. What he said was seized on by a newsmonger, and 
published in the papers in a most offensive and exaggerated light. 

Mr. Prentiss having called on me to act as his friend, I 
advised him to decline the challenge on the ground that what 
he said was in the discharge of a professional duty, &c., &c. 
Failing to satisfy him, I, at length, persuaded him to postpone 
action, consider the matter that night, and give me his deter- 
mination the next morning. "When the morning came, he 
decided to accept the call, saying he could not deny the right of 
a son to take up his father's quarrel without regard to its merits. 
At my request he associated with me Mr. Bullitt, of the Neio 
Orleans Picayune^ who, from his intimate personal relations 
with some of the other party, I was confident would prove a 
powerful auxiliary in the object nearest my heart — an amicable 
settlement of the affair. This object, not without the greatest 
difficulty, we finally accomplished. 

This was, in all respects, a most disagreeable affair to us both. 

Henry E was not only a mere youth (some twenty years 

old), acting, too, from the noblest impulses, but he was the 
grandson of Henry Clay, whose name he bore, and whom he 
greatly resembled; a statesman admired by us both beyond all 

others. Not only so, but Mr. James E was the brother of 

Mrs. John Bell, of Tennessee, whose distinguished husband was 
my intimate personal friend and political mentor, and both of 



DIFFICULTY WITH HENRY E- 



439 



whom were among the warmest friends and admirers cf Mr. 
Peentiss. I was, moreover, very fond of Henry, who had visited 
me not long before, and spent some days on my farm in 
Tennessee; add to this the consequences of the fall of Mr. 

Peentiss (I had no apprehension on account of Henry E ) 

to his family, his friends, and his country— and you may form 
some idea of my distress and anxiety. 

There never lived a man more prompt to make the amende 
honorable, when deserved, than S. S. Peextiss, and an apology 
from him was made in a style so courtly and chivalrous as to 
elevate him in the estimation of the party, to whom it was 
offered. Such was the etfect of a beautiful note, which he 
voluntarily addressed to the other party after the settlement of 
this matter. Those who came most excited against him, left 
the place his warm admirers and eulogists. 

I have said, that I was convinced Henry E stood in no 

danger^ and although Mr. Prentiss did not tell me, in so many 
words, he would not slioot at him, yet, I am well convinced, 
from my knowledge of the man, and the admiration he 
frequently expressed for the " gallant boy," as he termed him, 
that he would not have seen Henry fall by his hand, for all the 
mines of California. 

I shall never forget a scene, calculated to try, in the severest 
manner, his patience and equanimity. It was on a cold 
Sabbath night, soon after he received this <^hallenge. He came 
to my quarters, and informed me that he had just been 
arrested at his own house, and that he was anxious to return as 
speedily as possible to save Mrs. P. from .alarm, she not knowing 
the cause of his absence. We accompanied the officer, with the 
understanding that he would drive us to the residence of the 
Recorder, there to arrange the matter of bail, not to fight in 
Louisiana ; but, to our surprise, we very soon found ourseh es in 
front of the municipal prison. Here the officer stopped, and 
refused to budge another inch, regardless alike of our persua- 
sions and remonstrances. Finally, fearing that I might lose 
temper, Mr. Peentiss interposed, saying, in a good-humored 
tone, " Well, Peyton, we will not fight the law ;'• so leaving 



440 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

him in the office or ante-room of the prison, T went in search of 
the captain of the watch. On my return, I found Mr. P. hover- 
ing over a few coals (it was very cold, and he came off without 
his cloak), with a strapping negro fellow, who had been picked 
np, towering near him. " Well,'' said I, " Prentiss, this law of 
honor introduces us to strange bedfellows." "Yes," he 
replied, " I have endeavored to make my neighbor here feel at 
home, as I was the first squatter, but I can get nothing out of 
him. He takes me for a watchman." At length. Captain 
Winter arrived, and, in the most gentlemanly manner, accom- 
panied us in quest of the Reconder — but as he was not to be 
found, the captain let us oflP, with the promise that we would be 
at the office of that functionary at eleven o?clock the next 
morning, to give bail, which, I need hardly say, we did most 
punctually. 

I was at a loss which most to admire in Mr. Pkextiss, his 
chivalrous bearing and magnanimity, or the patience and good 
temper which he displayed from beginning to end of this mos* 
trying and unpleasant business of Henry E . 

It would be hard to express the relief and delight 
felt at this result, both Korth and South. For sever*! 
days the whole country was filled with telegraphic rumors, 
that a hostile meeting had taken place, and that Mr. 
Prentiss had been killed. The agony and suspense of his 
friends at the North were indescribable, while at New 
Orleans, where the most conflicting and frightful reports 
were in circulation, the whole city was kept, for more than 
a week, in a state of intense agitation. ** No similar 
affair," writes Col. Peyton, " ever excited an interest so deep 
and painful in New Orleans ; and it was stated that there were 
stronger demonstrations of joy over the adjustment of this 
matter than those exhibited at the close of the Mexican war." 

The following extract, from a letter of Richard T. 
Archer, Esq., of Port Gibson, will explain itself : — 



DIFFICULTY WITH A GRANDSON OP MR. CLAY. 441 

There is an incident, which it may not be improper to men- 
tion as illustrative of Mr. Peentiss' feelings on the practice of 

duelling. When he was engaged to meet young Mr. E , I 

went to New Orleans, on business of ray own, and did not 
know of the difference until I arrived in the city. The very 
exaggerated accounts then current on the streets, reached me 
before I saw him. It was said there were nine challenges already 
written for him. He called in the evening at my hotel, accom- 
panied by Col. Balie Peyton. I expressed my disapprobation 
of his accepting the challenge of a young man,* and I found 
that he had labored under the belief, that it was the only mode 
by which he could avoid involving his friends in a street affray. 
He was ever too generous and brave, and I immediately deter- 
mined that our mutual friend, Gen. Felix Huston, should be 
present. I, therefore, informed him, that if he did not send for 
Huston, I would, and he then consented that Mr. Downs should 
go up for him, Wljen Huston arrived, he and myself had much 
conversation apart from Peentiss. We both feared that he 
would stand up to be shot at, without purpose of returning Mr. 

E 's fire. Huston feared that there was little to choose 

between his doing this, or killing his antagonist. "For," he 
said to me, " if Peentiss kills E , I know his acute sensi- 
bility so well, that I tell you, you and I will bring him 
back a raving maniac!" Thinking it suicidal that he 
should stand to be shot down, and that it was unjust to an 
antagonist to subject him to the chances of taking the life of an 
unresisting man, I expostulated with Mr. Peentiss, as though I 
knew he did not intend to fire. After we left New Orleans, I 
renewed the subject, when we were alone. He thus replied to 
me, " My wife has packed up my clothes and bandages, and 
everything I can possibly want, and has not said one word 
to alter my purpose, though almost speechless with feeling; 
and this time. Archer, I will fight for my wife and children, not 
for myself.'''' 

* With the purpose of arresting so unequal a combat, I wrote and communi 
cated to the Picayune, a " Tale of Chivalry Forty Years Ago," which possibly may 
have met your eye. 

VOL. II. 19* 



442 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

You know the result. I am satisfied that the street rumors 
had been false, and that no men, on such an occasion, could be 
freer from vindictive feeling, or the desire to push to extremes, 

than were the friends of Mr. E . On our return to the city, 

I was told that Mrs. P. had fainted, as her husband left the 
house.* It was a week of intense feeling to us all. When I 
looked upon the reunion of husband and wife, of parent and 
children, I was myself as very a child as was present. Yet 
God, in his inscrutable wisdom, has separated them. May his 
blessing abide with the widow and orphans !"t 

I have no doubt that Gen. Huston's apprehension was 
correct ; but, if not, the effect of a fatal result to young 

E would have been, if possible, still more disastrous. 

Mr. Prentiss' friends who loved him best, would not have 
hesitated an instant to choose that he, rather than his an- 
tagonist, should have been the victim ; nor can I think that, 
in the event of an actual meeting, he would have hesitated 
himself, his promise to Mr. Archer notwithstanding. 

Can a practice which involves such moral consequences, 
be really justifiable at the bar of reason and conscience ? 
An action that is strictly right may, of course, issue in 



* "My faith ia God never wavered for a moment, and I said, though ffe 
slay me yet will I trust in Him. I knew it from the beginning, and yet could 
not raise my finger to prevent it. For two weeks I was in this condition, and 
couldn't eat, sleep, nor do anything but pray, weep and read my Bible. I was 
worn away to a perfect shadow, and tottered like an old man ; with all this, I had 
a low, nervous fever, and, indeed, it Is only now that I begin to feel at all like 
myself again." — Extract from a Letter dated April Mh, 1S48. 

t In a letter to Mr. Archer, written early in 1S49, Mr. P. thus alludes to this un- 
happy affair : — 

" I hope to see you in the city this winter, and to assure you in person, as I do 
now by letter, of the warm friendship and regard I entertain for you. I shall never 
forget your kindness, and the interest you took in my aflFairs, especially in the diffi- 
culty I became involved in last winter. I shall ever esteem you, as you have cer- 
tainly been, one of my best friends, and always take pleasure in your prosperit/ 
»nd happiness." — Ed. 



LETTER FROM MR. CLAT. 448 

much sorrow aud misery, as we see in the case of war ; it 
may be the subject of profound regret and painful recollec- 
tions ; but can it ever excite remorse ?* 

Mr. Clay expressed his joy at the result of this affair in 
the following beautiful letter ; 

" Ashland, 81 March^ 1848. 
I seize, my dear Mr. Prentiss, tlie first moment after my re- 
turn home, to express to you my thanks and gratitude for the 
generosity and magnanimity displayed by you in the amicable 
adjustment of the diflQculty, which had arisen between you and 

my grandson, H. Clay E . I was at the Eastward, when he 

resolved to proceed to New Orleans, and ask of you satisfaction 
for the injury which he supposed you had inflicted on the char- 
acter of his father ; and he acted altogether on his own impulses, 
or the advice of young members of my family. When at "Wash- 
ington I heard of the occurrence, it occasioned me infinite pain 
and regret ; but I concluded, from my knowledge of the chivalry 
and magnanimity of your character, that no hostile meeting 
would take place ; and the gratifying event demonstrated the 
correctness of my judgment. 



* I cannot forbear inserting here an extract from another letter just received. 

It is dated May 30, 1855. " He told me all about the E affair at the outset. He 

said that he had seen the young man— that he was a mere boy, and that he would 
as soon think of shooting at my sister Margaret, who was then a young girl. This 
was before the adjustment. He always said he never intended firing at the young 
man, but would fire in the air. He asked for time to deliberate, but was told that he 
must give an immediate answer. Miss Eliza E , who was on a visit to me, ex- 
pressed her surprise at his agitation, and the manner it seemed to affect him. Aa 
in previous affairs of the kind he had appeared perfectly calm and collected, she 
thought he must have felt the sinfulness of the act he was about to commit. He 
could do nothing ; neither eat nor sleep. He was completely unnerved, and his 
health so much affected, that my brother. Dr. W., had to give him tonics, and 
take him cut of the city. Finding I could not prevent it, I begged to be allowed to 
accompany him ; but he said he would rather I remained at home, and I did so. I 
have often wondered that he told me about it ; but he never kept anything from 
me. You can imagine my feelings : two long weeks of suspense ! I was very sick 
afterwards, and how I kept up during the time is wonderful. When I packed hia 
trunk, I put into it a Bible given him by his mother years before. He afterwards 
ve)d me that he saw and used it," 



444 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

Nevertheless, during my sojourn in Philadelphia, just before I 
went out to dine in company, I heard that a meeting was cer- 
tainly to be had, and that it had probably taken place about 
eight days prior to that time. I did not know, therefore, but 
that during the dinner, I might hear of the fall of my friend, or 
my grandson. Imagine what must have been the agonized state 
of my feelings ! After the dinner was over, I was relieved by a 
telegraphic dispatch, announcing the honorable accommodation 
of the unpleasant affair. 

This event, my dear Mr. Prentiss, has added new cement to 
the friendship which has existed between us, and on which I 
have ever placed the highest value. 

I request you to present my affectionate regards to Mrs. Pren- 
tiss ; and how can I think of her, and your interesting children, 
without entreating you never to hazard a life so dear to them, 
and so precious to all your friends, but to none more than to 

Your faithful friend, 

H. Clay. 

The public mind, at this time, was chiefly occupied with 
questions growing out of the Mexican war. Some of these 
questions were novel in their character, and all of them were 
fraught with the gravest political issues. There was a party 
throughout the country, led on by influential politicians, who 
seemed inflamed with the lust of indefinite territorial expan- 
sion ; they thought the United States could readily " swal- 
low '' all Mexico, and they were not indisposed to see the 
experiment made. A wild spirit of American propagand- 
ism, under the strange name of Manifest Destiny, was ram- 
pant in the land. Even grey-headed statesmen preached the 
doctrine with all the zeal of young converts, and strove to 
incorporate it with the established creed of the dominant 
Darty. The old stable maxims of the Republic were derided ; 
and, for a time, anxiety and foreboding pervaded the com« 
munity. Happily, the sober second thought of the natioB 



EXTRACT FROM CALHOUN. i45 

prevailed over temporary excitement and the intoxication 
of military glory.* 



* A few paragraphs from Mr. Calhoun's noble speech against the conquest of 
Mexico, delivered in the U. S. Senate, January 4th, 1S48, will confirm the above 
statement. If that eminent statesman had done nothing else worthy of honor, his 
truly dignified and patriotic course at this time, and previously in arresting a war 
with England upon the Oregon question, entitles him to be held in grateful and per- 
petual remembrance by the American people. 

" We make a great mistake in supposing all people capable of self-government. 
Acting under that impression, many are anxious to force free governments on all 
the people of this Continent, and over the world, if they had the power. It has 
been lately urged in a very respectable quarter, that it is the mission of this coun- 
try to spread civil and religious liberty over all the globe, and especially over this 
Continent, even by force, if necessary. It is a sad delusion. None but a people 
advanced to a high state of moral and intellectual excellence are capable, in a civi- 
lized condition, of forming and maintaining free governments ; and among those 
who are so far advanced, very few indeed have had the good fortune to form con- 
stitutions capable of endurance. It is a remarkable fact in the political history of 
man, that there is scarcely an instance of a free constitutional government, which 
has been the work exclusively of foresight and wisdom. They have all been the re- 
sult of a fortunate combination of circumstances. It is a very diflScult task to make 
a constitution worthy of being called so. This admirable Federal Constitution of 
ours, is the result of such a combination. It is superior to the wisdom of any or of 
all the men by whose agency it was made. The force of circumstances, and not 
foresight or wisdom, induced them to adopt many of its wisest provisions. 

"But of the few nations who have been so fortunate as to adopt a wise constitu- 
tion, still fewer have had the wisdom long to preserve one. It is harder to preserve 
than to obtain liberty. After years of prosperity, the tenure by which it is held is 
but too often forgotten ; and I fear. Senators, that such is the case with us. There 
is no solicitude now for liberty. Who talks of liberty when any great question 
comes up ? Here is a question of the first magnitude as to the conduct of this war ; 
do you hear anybody talk about its effects upon our liberties and our free institu- 
tions ? No, sir. That was not the case formerly. In the early stages of our gov- 
ernment, the great anxiety was, how to preserve liberty. The great anxiety now is 
for the attainment of mere military glory. In the one we are forgetting the other. 
The maxim of former times was, that power is always stealing from the many to the 
few ; the price of liberty was pei-petual vigilance. They were constantly looking 
out and watching for danger. Not so now. Is it because there has been any decay 
of liberty among the people? Not at all. I believe the love of liberty was never 
more ardent, but they have forgotten the tenure of liberty, by which alone it is pre- 
served. 

♦' We think we may now indulge in everything with impunity, as if we held our 
charter of liberty by ' right divine '—from Ueaven itself. Under these impressions 
we plunge into war, we contract heavy debts, we increase the patronage of the Ex. 
ecutive, and we talk of a crusade to force our institutions of liberty upon all people. 
There is no species of extravagance which our people imagine will endanger their 



446 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

Mr. Preutiss was too deeply impressed with the import- 
ance of the crisis to remain silent. For the first time, after 
removing to New Orleans, he took part in political affairs, 
by addressing a large meeting, called for the purpose of 
nominating delegates to the Whig National Convention, on 
the evening of February 22d, 1848. 

The victories of Gen. Taylor on the Rio Grande, and 
those admirable traits of character which were thereby sud- 
denly disclosed to the public eye, had already led to his 
nomination as an independent candidate for the Presidency. 
In Louisiana, his adopted State, the feeling in his favor 
was especially strong and enthusiastic ; so much so that not 
a few of the most prominent Whigs, believing he could be 
elected as an independent candidate, had taken decided 
ground against submitting his claims to the decision of a 
National Convention. Had this policy been carried out, 
and Louisiana failed to be represented at the Philadelphia 
convention, it is pretty certain that Gen. Taylor's political 
fortunes would have been nipped in the bud. Indeed, as it 
was, nothing but the solemn assurances of the Louisiana dele- 
gation, pledging him to Whig principles, and to abide by 
the choice of the Convention, finally secured his nomination, 
and saved the party from hopeless divisions. 

At this critical juncture, Mr. Prentiss came forward, and 
threw his influence into the scale of united and national 
action. The spirit of his address will appear from the 
following imperfect sketch : 

Fellow- Whigs : — I came here to-night to perform my diity 
as a good Whig, desirous of promoting the harmony and united 
action of our great and noble party. Though I have mingled 



liberty in any degree. Sir, the hour is approaching — the day of retribution will 
come. It wUl come as certainly as I am now addressing the Senate, and when II 
does come, awful will be the reckoning ; heavy the responsibility somewhere." 



SPEECH. 44t 

deeply in the political contests cf a neighboring Sta^e, yet since 
my residence in this city, private duties and interests have with- 
drawn me almost wholly from public affairs, and it is with no 
aspirations beyond the position of a mere private in the ranks, 
that I appear among you to-night. I am still a devoted, enthu- 
siastic Whig, such as I have ever been since I learned to distin 
guish between right and wrong, and such as I expect to be whea ' 
the grave shall demand my mortal frame. 

I understand it to be the object of this meeting, fellow-citi- 
zens, to secure a representation in the National Convention, 
which is to determine to whom our glorious Whig banner shall 
be confided in the coming contest. We must sink all mere per- 
sonal preferences, in the greater good of our party. We have 
come together to offer up our private affectiop« and partialities 
upon the altar of Whig harmony. As an oh Whig, who has 
never deserted his standard, or turned his back upon the enemy, 
I am here to give my humble counsel in furtherance of this de- 
sign. T have been among the strongest opponents of conven- 
tions, but all must be convinced that at present they cannot be 
dispensed with. What is mere personal, individual action in a 
great political contest, but the folly of the soldier, who at Buena 
Vista would have shouldered his musket and gone forth alone 
against the serried ranks and bristling bayonets of the Mexican 
host ? It is only by keeping together — by preserving the touch 
of the elbow^ that success is achieved in the day of battle ; and , 
so it is in that great civil conflict, a Presidential election. We 
must act together, then — we must throw all our local and per- 
sonal predilections into the crucible of a National Convention, 
so that we may draw furth the pure gold, and present it to the 
people for their admiration and enrichment. If the State of 
Louisiana could elect the President, I acknowledge there would 
be no necessity for such consultation ; but our sister States have 
something to say in this matter, and their will and counsel must 
be lieard, tlieir rights and influence should be acknowledged. 
We must not expect to force our individual preferences upon 
■thers. Had /the choice of a President — did it rest with me tc 
i\ dicate the successor of the present occuj)ant of the Chief 



448 MEMOIR OF S. S. PREXTISS. 

Magistracy — I sLould not be much puzzled to select — I should 
cling to my first love — I sliould shout aloud the name of that 
veteran statesman, who has attained the very highest eminence 
on the pedestal of fame — under whose banner I have so often 
been proud to fight — whose white plume I have so often followed 
in battle, when, like that of the gallant Harry Y. it tossed to 
and fro in the conflict, but never bowed to power, nor was 

stained by cowardice, I should give my vote for (J)ut ere 

the name passed Mr. P.'s lips., there was a tremendous outburst 
from the croicd^ which shook the huilding., and made the name of 
CLA Y reverberate through the immense room in to?ies of thu7ider). 

But (resumed Mr. P. when silence was restored), it is not for 
me to choose for the whole party. Fortunately we have many 
noble leaders; men, adorned with all those high virtues and ca- 
pacities, which fit them for the exalted ofiice of presiding over a 
free people. But the Whig party is laboring, I trust, for some- 
thing more than the elevation of an individual. I understand i*- 
to be contending for the ascendency and triumph of certain 
fixed and all-important principles. In spirit it has existed since 
the foundation of the government, and always must exist. It is 
the great conservative party of the country ; by its position and 
moral power, preserving the harmony and security of our politi- 
cal system. Holding fast to the golden mean, it would save the 
Constitution alike from the wild innovations of restless radicals, 
and from the selfish schemes of calculating demagogues and 
placemen. 

The Whig party, I repeat, does not depend on any one indi- 
vidual alone. Persons are mortal, but W^iig principles are eter- 
nal. Kor is it identical with any particular set of measures. 
The bank, the tariff", and other temporary issues, do not involve 
the life of the Whig cause ; these are questions of political poli- 
cy, which may be decided against us, and yet Whig principles 
live on in all their strength and salutary influence. It is only 
by destroying our repubfican institutions, that these great prin- 
ciples of law, and order, and social restraint, which I hold to 
be among the proper principles of the Whig party, can cease to 
exist and to have power in this nation. I am not ready to aban- 



SPEECH. 449 

don such a party and such principles for the chimera of inde- 
pendent nc-partyisin. We shall rue the day when this no-party 
idea is carried out ; when we have no political principles to con- 
tend for. Then the people, like a great giant, will lie down to 
sleep, while the demagogues carry on their nefarious purposes 
with impunity and success. God save us from such no-partyism I 
God save the Whig party from the disgrace of deserting its 
standard at this momentous epoch of our public affairs ! The 
conquest of a vast empire— the immense additions which have 
been made to our territory, and the necessity of governing this 
new acquisition through proconsuls, or other agents, will throw 
into the hands of this Government a power of corruption, which, 
unless resisted by all the vigor, union and strength of the Whigs, 
will be likely to subvert both the Constitution and the Union. 

I am in fevor, then, of sending delegates to the National Con- 
vention—not as Taylor nor as Clay men, but as good Whigs, de- 
voted to the success and triumph of our party and our princi- 
ples. If Gen. Taylor should be the choice of that Convention, 
I for one, whatever may have been and may now be my personal 
preference, should willingly jgght under the banner of the brave 
old chieftain, the prestige of whose victories over a foreign 
enemy would give him irresistible strength before the people in 
a civil contest. I speak of Gen. Taylor as a Whig, a true Whig, 
whose principles and views are those of the great Whig party 
of the nation. Though devoted for forty years to the occupation 
of a soldier, he has given such striking proof of fitness for civil 
life, that I, for one, should fear not to trust him with the delicate 
and responsible duties of the Presidency. 

But I have, I repeat, no confidence in the independent no- 
partyism, which has lately exploded in this city. I don't believe 
that we have yet readied a political railleniutn, when " the wolf 
shall dwell with the lamh^ and the leoxjard ahalllie down with the 
Mdr 

We have already seen the ardor of this independent no-party- 
ism cool off in two weeks. Some of our friends were too quick 
on the trigger, but they have seen their error, and are rapidly 
retracing their steps. When Gen. Taylor was first named for 



/ 



450 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

the Presidency, it was thought the movement would be acqui- 
esced in by the Whigs all over the Union ; but it turned out 
differently, and hence the necessity of a National Convention. 
Let that Convention act, and we will join heart and hand in giv- 
ing effect to its decision. The Whig party is certain of one vic- 
tory in every four or five chances. The Democrats will beat us 
at least three out of four times in the Presidential contest ; but 
they are pretty sure to get things all wrong, and to require 
Whig wisdom to set them right again. They will mismanage 
the engine, and get the screws loose ; but when things are so 
bad, that they can't be made worse, then good Whig engineers 
will come in to restore order and efficiency, and put the noble 
ship of State again upon the right track. 

In conclusion, then, let us go into the choice of our candidate 
in the spirit of harmony and mutual concession. The roll of 
our party abounds in names that would do honor to the Presi- 
dency. In our Whig firmament there are many stars. You 
may strike out a few, and yet not leave us in gloom, or darkness. 
We are like the fair lady, who looks into her casket of jewels, 
and is sorely puzzled to determine which brilliant stone or glit- 
tering diamond shall adorn her lovely brow. Let us not be 
guilty of the folly of quarrelling about individuals, when we 
have great principles to guard and to contend for ! 

Let the Convention select Old Zack, and who of you will 
withhold his support — ^liis warm and cordial support from one 
who has done so much for our national fame and character — 
one, who has borne the stars and stripes hundreds of miles into 
a hostile land — and whose heroic exploits are yet surpassed 
by his gentle and humane virtues? But, should the choice 
of the Convention fall upon the great statesman, whose civic 
laurels yields not in splendor to the brightest chaplets that 
ever bloomed upon a warrior's brow, what Whig will hesitate or 
falter in his support? Since the days of Washington, what 
name has exerted so potent an influence upon the Whig party as 
that of Henry Clay? When has his clarion voice b*een heard 
that it did not kindle an ardor and zeal in all true Whigs greater 
than that aroused in a soldier's breast, by the tones of th« 



IS URGED TO ATTEND THE WHIG CONVENTION. 451 

trnmpeV the deep rolling of the drum, or the lond booming of 
cannon? (Here again loud cheers and cries of ^'' Hurrah for 
Clay /" drowned tlie speaker's voice, and rendered it impossible 
to catch the conclusion of his address.) 

Mr. Prentiss was appointed at the head of the Delega- 
tion, and wa^ earnestly solicited to attend the Convention 
at Philadelphia. Mr. Clay was particularly anxious that 
he should be present. " I saw, with much satisfaction," he 
writes to him, " that you were appointed one of the dele- 
gates from Louisiana to the National Convention, which is 
to assemble in June next. I sincerely hope that you may be 
able to attend it. I believe your presence there is highly 
important. You will take an impartial survey of the whole 
ground, and have it in your power to arrive at a just 
decision. 

***** 

" Should you attend the Convention, which I most ear- 
nestly entreat you to do, if practicable, I hope you will 
come and stop with me a while. Independent of any pub- 
lic considerations, I shall be delighted to see and entertain 
you under my roof," 

The following letter shows the ground of his strong per- 
sonal preference of Mr. Clay over Gen. Taylor as a Whig 
candidate for the Presidency : — 

New Orleans, May 22, 184S. 

My Deae Brother : — 

I feel 1 eally ashamed of my neglect towards you, 
and hardly know which excuse to make for it; the fact is, I 
have a most unaccountable repugnance to writing letters, and 
since Mary has got in the habit of corresponding with you and 
Anna, I have pretty much abandoned my portfolio to her; but, 
as she is now absent, I will resume the pen 'pro tempore. She 
and the children went up to Longwood about throe weeka 
ago. I took thena up, and returned immediately. I was anx« 



452 MEMOIR OF S, S. PRENTISS. 

ions that they s^hould get a little fresh country air. I have 
half completed an arrangement, to take them over to the 
sea-shore for two or three months during the summer. If I do 
not go there, I shall stay in the city, unless there i3 an epidemic. 
* * I take very little part in politics ; indeed the only political 
speech I have made since I removed to this city, was the one 
of which you saw an imperfect report. I did it to produce 
harmony among the Whigs here. It is perfectly ridiculous for a 
respectable party to make its success dependent upon any one 
man. That Henry Clay is a thousand times better fitted than 
Gen. Taylor, for the first office in the nation, no man of sense 
and observation can deny. Clay is a statesman, well acquainted 
with our institutions, our political history, our relations, both 
foreign and domestic. He understands polity, and is every way 
fitted to guide the councils of the country. General Taylor is a 
brave, honest, simple man ; wljolly ignorant of politics. To him 
all matters of State will be Gordian knots, and as he cannot solve 
them with his sword, he will be compelled to call in others to 
untie them ; in other words, he must be guided by his Cabinet. 
Should he be elected, however, I see, on the whole, no reason to 
doubt that his administration will be, if not a brilliant, at least a 
safe and good one. If Mr. Clay can be elected, the "Whigs ought 
not to hesitate a moment in preferring him to General Taylor ; but 
if he cannot, then General T. is infinitely preferable to any Demo- 
crat. I have met him several times in private, and am delighted 
with the old man's modesty and simplicity ; he is, -vVithout doubt, 
a good man, of most sterling qualities ; but he is certainly weak, 
and ignorant in matters out of his profession. I deem it so 
important, however, that the Whigs should obtain the ascendency 
in the coming election, that I am willing to go for almost any 
man who will bring around that result. There never was a 
period when it was more important that power should be placed 
in conservative hands-. The sudden and startling revolutions 
which are taking place in Europe, on the one hand ; and, on the 
other, our possession by conquest of the great empire of Mexico, 
are sufficient to turn the heads of the Democrats. They are liable 
to go to any lengths, and in their worsliip of what they call 



LETTERS. 453 

progress^ to look with contempt upon all the wisdom and expe- 
rience of the past. I fear much that the government, under the 
present condition of things, would not be safe in Democratic 
hands. 

I regret I cannot attend the convention at Philadelphia. I 
could, I think, do some service ; and besides, if once there, I 
could pay you all a visit, which would be most delightful. My 
business however, will not permit it. I must abstain from poli- 
tics, and postpone for another year the happiness of seeing those 
Hove so much. I intend to take time by the forelock, and make 
my arrangements in advance for a trip North, next summer. 
So far as human agency iw concerned, I sliall endeavor not 
to be baulked again. I shall never be contented, till our dear 
mother has put her hand upon the heads of my wife and child- 
ren, and blessed them. 

I most deeply regret poor 's misfortunes', and my present 

inability to aid him. It is certainly hard, that so worthy and 
industrious, as well as capable a man, should suffer for want of 
proper employment. When I think of his large family, and 
small means, I reproach myself for my own carelessness and 
prodigality, but for which I might, perhaps, have been able to 
relieve him from his difficulties. My family are all well, and I 
expect them home next day after to-morrow. I feel very lone- 
some without them, and shall hardly permit them to be absent 
from me so long again. The weather is getting warm, and the 
business season is drawing to a close. In a month the courts 
will all adjourn over till November ; and I shall then endeavor 
to take a little repose. I, need some rest, for I have worked 
hard during the winter. My love to you all. 

Your affectionate brother, 
Seaegent. 

tohismotheb. 

New Orleans, JwZy 16, 1848. 
My Dear Mother : 

I cannot express to you how much I was gratified 
at receiving your long and affectionate letter. The sight of 



454 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

your handwriting alone was no small pleasure, e-vfen before I 
had read it. It seemed almost like seeing yourself; and then 
when I read all your kind words, I felt both happy and thankful 
that such a true and loving mother was still spared to me. You 
cannot feel more disappointed than we do at not being able to 
visit you this summer ; but I do both hope and believe that 
nothing will prevent us next year. We have set our hearts 
upon it, and shall go if it be possible. Mary has written to 
you of the severe accident which had befallen our little girl. 
It has been now three weeks since her fall. She is doing 
exceedingly well, considering the nature of the fracture. It 
■was a compound fracture of the thigh. She has suffered but 
little pain since the bone was first set, and has had no fever. 
The wound is almost healed, and I think, in about two weeks, 
we can take off the bandages. I do not think she will be lame 
or suffer any permanent injury. Still it is very uncertain, as a 
compound fracture seldom occurs without causing some lame- 
ness. Poor thing, it will be a sad misfortune to her, should she 
be lame. I am afraid her disposition is not such as to enable her 
to bear it patiently. She has, however, been a very good girl, 
and shown a great deal of fortitude. She has, of course, been 
confined to her bed, lying in one position. As soon as she can 
be moved, we shall go over to the sea-shore and probably spend 
the remainder of the summer there. We have engaged part 
of a house, and board in a very nice family, and I think it will 
be pleasant for Mary and the children. The sea-bathing will bo 
good for them, at all events. 

I am much gratified tliat you are 4)leased with your move to 
Newburyport, and with your situation there. Your little grand- 
children must be a great comfort to you, though, if you had 
them all about you, I fear their number and noise would run 
you distracted. Mr. Huntington, who paid A. a visit a few 
weeks ago, speaks of her children in the most extravagant terms, 
almost enough to make me jealous. I believe, I wrote you 

that I had a letter from S about six or seven weeks ago. 

He was still at the old place, in Missouri, but no better off than 
when he went there. Poor fellow ! he seems to have bad luck 



LETTERS. 455 

in his projects. His health was good, but he wrote in very low 

Bpirits. My love to Anna, the children, and Mr. S , and 

believe me, ray dearest mother, always, 

Your affectionate and devoted son, 

Seaegent. 

P. S. — I ordered one of our city papers, the Picayune^ to be 
sent you ; thinking you might like to know what is going on 
here. 

Although the pressure of business rendered it impossible 
for him to go to Philadelphia, he took great interest in the 
proceedings there ; and after the nomination of Gen. Taylor, 
he entered upon the canvass with patriotic zeal. In the 
course of the summer, he visited different parts of Louisiana 
and neighboring States, and addressed the people in behalf 
of Taylor and Fillmore. His exertions were, no doubt, far 
beyond his strength. On one occasion he swam a river, 
which the rains had swollen, in order to meet an engage- 
ment ; and it is not improbable that, had he spent the sum- 
mer in entire repose, or in a voyage at sea, he might still 
have been alive. The climate and battlefields of Mexico 
were not more fatal to life and health than is a warmly con- 
tested Presidential election, for those who have to encounter 
its toils, fatigues and fearful excitements. In a letter, 
written in April, 1849, having occasion to allude somewhat 
pointedly to his efforts in this canvass, he says : '' No man 
in the United States labored more vigorously in behalf of 
Gen. Taylor than I did. Indeed, I have just now ariseii 
from a bed of sickness, which I contracted by my exposure 
and exertions in the canvass. With regard to Fillmore, I 
did more than any man in this region. I had served with 
him in Congress, and my opinion, therefore, had greater 
weight. I denounced the various slanders, both oral and 
written, that were circulated in this State against him, in 



466 MEMOIR OF S. S. TRENTISS. 

a manner which, while it tended to destroy their eflfect, 
threatened daily to involve me in dangerous personal diffi- 
culties." 

I 'yae present (writes Col. Peyton) and heard all his speeches 
in 1848. To say that they were able and eloquent, would be 
but faint praise ; they were such as no other man could have 
made. In the defence of Mr. Fillmore, who was greatly mis- 
represented at tiie South, and who was the weak point of our 
ticket in that section, he was almost irresistible. On this sub- 
ject lie spoke from personal knowledge, and with an ardor and 
earnestness that was conclusive with all unprejudiced men. 

I remember an incident of this canvass, which shows his for- 
bearance and magnanimity of character, under strong provoca- 
tion. We met at Clinton, in the interior of Louisiana, where he 
charmed and electrified the audience, more especially the ladies, 
with one of his happiest efforts ; after which we separated, I 
going into the "Piney woods," and he returning to New Orleans 
by Port Hudson, where he took a steamer for the city. On this 

boat lie met a rude, boisterous Locof5co, a Col. M , who 

denounced Gen. Taylor and Mr. Fillmore as abolitionists, and 
finally became so much excited as to make a personal attack on 
Mr. Peentiss, who defended them. A gentleman present advised 
him to use his cane, which he declined to do, and handing it to 
a bystander, grappled the colonel, and held him with so firm a 
grasp that he was completely powerless, although a man in the 
prime of life, and greatly over his own size. After they were 
separated, those who witnessed the affair, inquired why he did 
not strike the man with his cane ? He replied, " I could handle 
Mm without it ; and, besides, I did not wish to harm him ; he 
is intoxicated." No man possessed a kinder or more forgiving 
nature than Mr. Peentiss. 

It was quite late in the summer before the public mind 
became thoroughly aroused in this contest. The disap- 
pointment of many warm adherents of Mr, Clay, that he had 
not been nominated ; a similar disappointment on the part 



PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 1848. 451 

of the devoted admirers of Mr. "Webster and Gen. Scott, 
that those eminent citizeus had been passed by ; the course 
of Gen. Taylor's "Independent" friends ; his own episto- 
lary errors, the fruit of his simple honesty and total igno- 
rance of electioneering ways ; the serious repugnance felt by 
some good men in the party, to the elevation of a military 
man to the Presidency ; — these causes, together with the 
Free-Soil excitement, created a sort of stupor among the 
Whigs for a couple of months after the nomination. Had 
there not been grievous disappointment and divisions among 
the Democrats, Gen. Cass would, no doubt, have been 
triumphantly elected. 

In a letter to his elder brother, dated Pass Christian, 
August 25, 1848, Mr. P. writes : 

I am making some personal exertions in favor of Taylor, and 
shall continue to do so till the election. Last week I went to 
Clinton, in the northern part of Louisiana, and addressed the 
people there ; and on the 2d prox. I am to be at Baton Rouge, 
• by appointment, to participate in a pubhc discussion which is to 
take place between the two parties. I think Louisiana will go 
for Taylor ; but it is by no means certain ; and while I have 
much hope, I am not over-sanguine as to the general result. It is 
true, the dissensions in the Democratic ranks are favorable; and 
I trust Van Buren will kill off Cass in the Northern States. We 
have just received the news that Polk has signed the Oregon bill, 
with the Wilmot proviso. This is a heavy blow to the Southern 
Democracy, who have made that the leading question ; and I am 
of opinion it will result to the decided advantage of the Whigs. 

It is proper to state here, that Mr. Prentiss took very 
decided ground against the so-called Wilmot proviso. This 
celebrated clause, as the reader hardly needs to be told, pro- 
hibited the introduction of slavery into any territory of the 
United States, where it did not already exist. Mr. Pren- 
tiss regarded it as a violation of the constitutional rj"-^*' 

VOL. II. 20 



458 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

the South. He contended that the Constitution was based 
on a compromise between the North and the South ; that all 
the States were entitled to share equally in the new territo- 
ries of the Union ; that to prohibit the Southern half of 
them from carrying their slaves there, was really to exclude 
them from the territories ; and that, therefore, such legis- 
lation was essentially unjust and unconstitutional. It is but 
fair to add, that his general views of slavery, as a social 
institution, had undergone a great change during his resi- 
dence in Mississippi. On this subject, he departed from the 
doctrine of his political master, Henry Clay, and adopted 
substantially the theory of Mr. Calhoun. 

He was not ready to admit that domestic servitude, as it 
exists in the Southern States, is a great moral evil ; or 
even that, in the progress of Christian society, it is destined 
to disappear. But it always seemed to me that he was 
somewhat self-willed and in contradiction with himself when 
defending this position ; for no one could speak with more 
severity or abhorrence of the maltreatment of a slave than ' 
be did ; no one could depict in more vivid colors* the igno- 
rant and thriftless race of " poor white farmers," who form a 
natural stratum of Southern society between the negro and 
his master ; no one could dwell with a nobler eloquence 
upon the happy effects of diversifying human industry, of 
multiplying and nurturing the mechanic arts, of elevating 
labor, and affording every man free scope to unfold whatever 
power was in him ; nor had any one a keener sense thaw 
he of the peril to which children are exposed by associating 
with slaves. He often remarked, that some of the worst mas- 
ters he had ever known were from the North ; they had none 
of that natural, kindly affection .towards their slaves, which 
is common to natives of the South. Perhaps a somewhat 
similar theoretical effect is apt to follow an acquaintance 
with slavery after childhood ; at any rate, some of the most 



VIEWS OF SLAVERY. 459 

extreme views of the institution have been advocated by 
men born and bred in the North, while the most wise and 
considerate, as in the case of Mr. Clay, have been held by 
men trained in the midst of it. 

But while Mr. Prentiss maintained that the African race 
cannot co-exist with the Anglo-Saxon, in a state of social 
or political freedom ; that subjection, more or less absolute, 
is, in this country, their necessary position, and the one best 
adapted to their improvement ; he was strongly in favor of 
wise legal enactments for protecting their rights and amelio- 
rating their condition. He contended that the law, as well 
as public sentiment at the South, recognized them as per- 
sons, and not as mere chattels ; that they had rights, in the 
strictest sense ; and that the State was bound to secure and 
enforce them. 

His own treatment of the colored man, whether bond or 
free, was always most kind. Nothing could show this bet- 
ter than the fact that many years before his death, a young 
free negro " squat" upon his premises, insisted upon becom- 
ing his servant, and did serve him, in the most faithful and 
affectionate manner, to the last day of his life. He was at 
full liberty to go when and where he pleased, but attachment 
to Mr. Prentiss seemed to be his ruling passion. 

Writing again to his elder brother, under date of Oct. 1 1, 
Mr. P. says : 

I have made a number of speeches in different portions of the 
State, and am perfectly satisfied, from all my observations, that 
Louisiana is safe for Taylor and Fillmore, by a handsome majority. 
I have little, in fact no, doubt now of their election. The result in 
Pennsylvania has settled the matter. The report you allude to, 
that I was opposed to Fillmore, is equally ridiculous and untrue. 
It doubtless arose from some complimentary remarks which I 
made at Mobile in reference to the personal character of Gen. 
Butler. This some of the Locofoco writers distorted into an 



460 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

expression of preference of Butler for Vice-President. Of coursei, 
such an idea never entered my head, nor did any expression of 
mine warrant it. I consider Filhnore the very best selection 
that could have have made. He is a true, honest, conservative 
"Whig, and as good a friend of the South as any man north of 
Mason's and Dixon's line. I have, on all occasions, taken pains to 
findicate him from the rabid attacks of the Locofocos, and to 
bear witness, as one of his colleagues in Congress, to his talents 
and pati-iotism. To-morrow night I am to address the "Fillmore 
Kangers," a body composed of the leading and most influential 
young men of the city. They have assumed the name to show 
that they are as zealous for Fillmore as for Taylor. 



TO HIS TOUNGEST BROTHER. 

New Orleaks, Oct. 24, 1848. 

My Dear Brother : — 

I returned a few days since from the country, after 
an absence of three or four weeks. I took Mary, you know, and 
the children, up to Natchez about two months ago, from the 
sea-shore ; they have remained there ever since. I have been 
busy, part of the time, at the courts, and the remainder in 
electioneering for Taylor and Fillmore. I have worn myself 
entirely down, and can scarcely speak above a whisper. Indeed, 
I never was so thoroughly used up in my life. My breast is a 
good deal inflamed, and my throat sore. However, I shall get 
over it after a few davs' rest, and I have determined not to make 
any more speeches before the election. The fact is, I cannot do 
so with safety. I believe I have done some good to the cause. 
Louisiana, I think, is certain for the Whigs ; and, on the whole, I 
feel the utmost confidence in the general result. But I have 
something more interesting to tell you than politics — at least 
more so to me. This morning I got a note from Mrs. Williams, 
informing me that on Saturday morning I became the father of 
a fine, bouncing girl, and that both daughter and mother were 
doing most excellently well. You may imagine how eager I 
am to go and give the little stranger a father's welcome into th« 



REMINISCENCES BY MR. THORPE. 461 

wide world she has so suddenly stumbled upon. I expect A. 
will be trying to "swop" one of her boys for one of my little 
girls. You see my paternal honors are increasing, and that I am 
becoming in trutli " paterfamilias.'" I feel quite alarmed when 
I see the extent of my responsibilities. Children are sources of 
much care, it is true ; but they are certainly very great blessings 
— at least, such have I found mine. What have you done about 
the professorship at Bowdoin ? I did not write to advise you 
because yon were much the best judge of the matter. It was 
a compliment, at all events ; but I am rather in hopes you have 
declined it. A professorship in one of our colleges, is a laborious, 
ill paid, and thankless office. In a worldly point of view, the 
professorship tendered cannot be as good as your present posi- 
tion, and as a field for doing good can hardly be better. Give 
my love to your family, and believe me always 

Your affectionate brother, 

Seargent. 

Although Mr. Prentiss was very severe in denouncing the 
slanders against Mr. Fillmore, yet his general tone was 
so fair and dignified as to win the highest praise from his 
political opponents themselves. The Washington Union^ 
then edited by the veteran Ritchie, contained several com 
plimentary notices of his speeches. 

A touching reminiscence by Mr. Thorpe will fitly close 
this sketch of his connection with the Presidential Election 
of 1848 : 

I had the melancholy pleasure of hearing Mr. Prentiss' last, and, 
it seemed to me, his greatest speech. Towards the close of the 
last Presidential campaign, I fuund him in the interior of the 
State, endeavoring to recruit his declining health. He had been 
obliged to avoid all public speaking, and had gone far into the 
country to get away from excitement. But there was a 
"gathering" near by his temporary home, and he consented to 
be present. It was late in the evening when he ascended the 
" stand," which was supported by the trunks of two magnificent 



462 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

forest-trees, through which the setting sun poured with pic- 
turesque effect. The ravages of ill health were apparent upon 
his face, and his high massive forehead was paler, and more 
transparent than usual. His audience, some three or four hun- 
dred persons, was composed in a large degree of his old and 
early friends. He seemed to feel deeply, and as there was 
nothing to oppose, he assumed the style of the mild and beau- 
tiful. He casually alluded to the days of his early coming 
among his Southern friends — to the hours of pleasure he had 
passed, and to the hopes of the future. In a few moments the 
bustle and confusion natural to a fatiguing day of political 
wrangling ceased, one straggler after another suspended his 
noisy demonstration, and gathered near the speaker. Soon a 
mass of silent, but heart-heaving humanity was crowded com- 
pactly before him. Had Peextiss, on that occasion, held the 
very heart-strings of his auditors in his hand, he could not have 
had them more in his power. For an hour he continued, rising 
from one important subject to another, until the breath was 
fairly suspended in the excitement. An uninterested spectator 
would have supposed that he had used sorcery in thus transfixing 
his auditors. While all others forgot, he noticed that the day 
was drawing to a close ; be turned and looked toward the setting 
sun, and apostrophized its fading glory; then, in his most touch- 
ing voice and manner, concluded as follows : 

" Friends — That glorious orb reminds me that the day is spent, 
and that I too must close. Ere we part, let me hope that it 
may be our good fortune to end our days in the same splendor, 
and that, when the evening of life comes, we may sink to rest 
with the clouds that close in our departure gold-tipped with the 
effulgence of a well-spent life." 

In looking back to the result of this election, and to the 
stirring scenes which preceded it, one cannot resist a vivid 
impression of the mutability of all things earthly. In less 
than seven years what changes have occurred ! The hero 
of the Kio Grande, with his accomplished son-in-law, Col. 
Bliss, President Polk, the veteran statesman of Kentucky, 



LETTER. 463 

and the great sons of New England and South Carolina, not 
to mention others, are all in their graves ! But the name 
of Taylor will not easily be forgotten. His life will always 
form a romantic episode in American history. 

He was a man of strongly-marked individuality. His 
character was a model of republican simplicity. He had 
not, it is true, the symmetrical finish, or the colossal pro- 
portions and unapproachable majesty, which belonged to 
Washington ; nor had he the imperial make and temper of 
Gen. Jackson. But neither of these great men was a 
braver soldier, a truer patriot, or an honester man, than 
Zachary Taylor. 

Mr. Prentiss thus expressed his satisfaction with the 
result of the election : 

New Orleans, I^ov. 25, 1848. 
My Deae Beother : 

I returned to the city yesterday with Mary and 
the children, after having been absent two or three weeks. I 
received your letter, announcing the birth of a son, only on the 
day I left, and had not time to congratulate you, as I now do, 
upon the auspicious event. 1 am glad you have a boy, and also 
that mine was a girl. I think a family of boys and girls much 
preferable to one composed of either alone. Brothers and sis- 
ters exert a salutary influence over each other, and afford full 
scope for the exercise, even in childhood, of the best affections 
and humanities. 

I trust the little one is well, and that auspicious stars looked 
-down upon his birth. May he live to become a good and pros- 
perous gentleman. His little cousin, who preceded him one 
day in her entrance into this bustling world, is in most excellent 
health and condition. She takes things with a quiet philosophy, 
which indicates both good temper and good digestion. Mary 
and the children are in better health than I ever knew them to 
be heretofore. My own general health has improved somewhat, 
though I am suffering from a desperate cold. Well, the election 
is now over, and we have achieved a glorious triumph. But^ 



464 MEilOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

after all, we weie in a very dangerous position. The whold 
election turned on Pennsylvania, and her vote was really a 
god-send. Four months ago I did not place the slightest calcu- 
lation upon it. Ohio, upon which we relied, failed us most 
miserably ; but I am very willing to exchange her for the old 
Keystone State. I think Pennsylvania may be relied upon here- 
after. She has more interest in being a Whig State than any 
other in the Union ; and her population, though slow and some- 
what ignorant, is improving every day, and has a stability of 
character which is calculated to render permanent the change 
they have undergone. How magnificently Louisiana has 
behaved; our majority will not fall much short of 3,000, far 
exceeding our most sanguine expectations. On the whole, I am 
well satisfied with the result. We shall have four years of 
firm, honest, and peaceful administration of the Government. In 
the meantime, the crisis of European revolutions will probably 
have passed, and the prosperity and happiness of our own 
country have advanced to a point which will satisfy all men of 
the superiority of a Wldg-conservatue over a Democratic- 
progressive Administration. At all events, things look more 
favorable than they have during my time, and I anticipate the 
best results. The utmost confidence may be placed in Old Zach. 
He is honest and true, and I am much mistaken if the dema- 
gogues, even of the Whig party, do not find him above their arts 
and influences. I need not say to you, that I have nothing to 
ask for. I would not take any oflBce witliin the gift of the Pre- 
sident, even if it were tendered me. I return from the political 
struggle to my professional pursuits with renewed pleasure. I 
shall carefully abstain from mingling any further with political 
matters, and devote myself wholly to my profession. Business' 
has commenced again, and my prospects continue to improve. 
I have every confidence in eventually getting out of debt and 
making another fortune. Mary and all the children join me in 
love to you and yours, especially tendering to the little stranger 
" the assurances of our distinguished consideration." 

Your affectionate brother, 

Seaegent. 



LETTERS. 465 

TO THE SAME, 

New Obleans, Dec. 25, 1848. 

Mt Dear Brothhe: — 

I wish you all a merry Christmas. I sincerely 
trust it may be more joyous than ours ; for just now times are 
very gloomy here. You have, doubtless, learned from public 
sources that the cholera is prevailing to a considerable extent, 
and with great virulence. It commenced about a week since. 
Much discussion took place as to the character of the disease ; 
but, three or four days ago, it was publicly announced by 
the Board of Health to be the genuine Asiatic Cholera. I 
attempted to persuade Mary to leave tlie city with the children, 
and proposed to take them to Natchez (that is, to Longwood), 
but she refused to go unless I would agree to remain there. This 
I could not do without sacrificing my business, and so we have 
concluded to stay it out. One of our servants has had it, but is 
now getting well. The rest of us are in good health, and as we 
are very careful in our diet, we feel very little apprehension. It 
prevails, as usual, most severely and almost entirely so far, 
among those whose habits, or mode of life, expose them in the 
greatest degree. I think the disease has already reached its 
climax. For several days the deaths have probably amounted 
to forty and fifty per day. To-day, I understand, there are not 
as many cases, and should the weather prove favorable, I think 
the pestilence will pass over us in the course of another week. 
I have not myself the slightest apprehension, as I have twice 
passed through it, though I should feel better if my family was 
oat of the city. Mary, however, is perfectly fearless, and the 
children in the best health, except colds, which we are all, more 
or less, aflfected with. Capt. D. is here, and dined with us 
to-day. He is in good health, and will spend Christmas with us 
to-morrow. Since the election, I have paid but little attention 
to political matters, and can give you no positive information 
upon the subject of Gen. Taylor's cabinet. There is no doubt, 
however, in my mind, that it will be composed of honest, 
able and trustworthy Whigs. It is understood that Gen. Taylor 
wrote to Mr. Crittende^j immediately after his election, offering 
VOL n. 30* 



466 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

his choice ; but it is almost certain that Mr. C. will not take 
oflBce. Mr. Clayton, of Delaware, will no doubt go into the 
cabinet, and beyond that I cannot say, for I do not believe Gen. 
Tayloi*, when last in 'New Orleans, had made up his own mind 
on the subject. He is personally unacquainted with most of our 
public men, and will take his own time to make up his mind. 
Of one thing, however, you may be certain — the old man is 
honest and true. I have seen him several times since the elec- 
tion, and my confidence in him has increased at every interview. 
I got a letter from S, the other day. He is still in Missouri, 
and though in good health, does not seem to have bettered his 
fortunes. Poor fellow! he certainly has patience and perse- 
verance worthy of greater success. Unless this cholera should 
continue and break up the courts, I think I shall do a good busi- 
ness this winter, and trust to be enabled to pay you all a visit 
next year. It will not do, however, to calculate upon it with 
too much confidence. I wish to see your children, and that you 
should see mine ; and, above all, that they may receive dear 
mother's blessing. I sympathize with you and L. upon the 
death of her dear mother, which is a most heavy affliction. 
Mary joins me in condolence for this sad event, as well as in 
love and affection for you all. 

Your affectionate brother, 

Seargent. 



HIS ORATORY. 461 



CHAPTEK XXYI. 

Mr. Prentiss' Character as a Popular Orator — The Sources of his Power — iu.lb>iu.»» 
ceptions on the Subject — Resemblance between him and Patrick Henry — Pecu- 
liarities of his Oratory — Its Strength lay chiefly in the Subject-matter of hia 
Addresses — His Political Opinions — Distrust of mere Politicians — His Views 
respecting the Form of our Government — It is not a simple Democracy — Its 
Practical Methods — The Will of the People not found in Primary Assemblies, or 
Mass Meetings; but only in the legitimate Action of the Executive, Legis- 
lative, and Judicial Authorities — American System of Liberty essentially Histo- 
rical, and Peculiar to Ourselves — Evils in the working of the Government — 
Executive Patronage — Extracts from Calhoun on the Subject — Debasement of the 
Presidential Office — His Opinion and Abhorrence of Demagogues — Extract from 
Aristotle — His Patriotic Hopes. 

The Presidential election of 1848 closed Mr. Prentiss' 
active participation in public affairs. It may not be amiss, 
therefore, before proceeding with our narrative, to offer 
some further reflections upon his character as a popular 
orator, and also to give a brief summary of his political 
opinions. 

Many regarded his oratory as a kind of intellectual 
magic. They felt its bewitching power, they perceived its 
wonderful influence upon others, saw how all classes, 
learned and ilUterate, old and young, men and women, were 
alike carried captive by it ; but, beyond this, it seemed to 
them a mystery as puzzling as the ancient " gift of tongues ;" 
they could not explain it on the ordinary principles of 
rhetorical cause and effect. Much of this popular wonder 
arose, no doubt, from simple ignorance or misconception of 
the facts of his early life. From his first appearance at the 



468 MEMOIR OF S. S. PBENTISS. 

bar of Mississippi, he was a sort of mythical personage. 
From the obscurity of a retiring schoolmaster, he had 
emerged into the public gaze so suddenly, and with such 
brillant effect, that everybody was curious to know his his- 
tory ; everybody was disposed to seize upon and magnify all 
the strange stories in circulation about hm. Some said he 
had been unkindly treated in his childhood, and, in a freak 
of fortune, had wandered off to Mississippi, a neglected, 
penniless boy. At Natchez, such was the tradition, ''a 
clergyman, of the Methodist persuasion, by sheer accident, 
formed the acquaintance of the unpretending lad, and with 
much difficulty persuaded him to embark in the legal profes- 
sion. Diffidence had near weaned the brightest star from 
the most favored position in the galaxy.*'* That he had 
any knowledge, except what he had picked up also "by 
sheer accident," seemed never to have crossed the minds 
of those who credited these fabulous stories. When, there- 
fore, they came actually to hear one of his magnificent 
speeches, and observed his high-toned, gentlemanly bearing, 
the glance of his fine eye, and that dauntless look of per- 
sonal and intellectual prowess, which all his modesty could 
not hide, is it strange that they regarded him as a splendid 
meteor ; or that the profane among them expressed their 
feelings in oaths of astonishment? Genius, indeed, espe- 
cially the genius of eloquence, is always viewed by the 
many as something preternatural — a kind of miracle in 
speech. There is that about it, which can be understood, or 
explained, by itself alone. Who can analyze the influence 
of sweet music, while ravished by its charms ? or who can 
renew the spell by which it bound fast the soul, and 
" lapped it in Elysium ?" 

It is not so difficult, however, to explain the mental 

, ■ » 

* Xew Orleans Delia. 



HIS ORATORY. 469 

forces, which produce the marvellous effect. In the pre 
sent instance they are open as day. A vigorous understand- 
ing, gifted with a rare faculty at once of analysis and syn- 
thesis, was the base ; add to this a quick, inventive fancy, 
strong memory, lively sensibilities, a highly impressible tem- 
perament ; crown the whole with true genius, and we have 
the main elements of Mr. Prentiss' intellectual character. 
The same general qualities, a little differently combined, 
make the great poet, philosopher, or divine. As a robust 
understanding was the substratum of his mind, so know- 
ledge, reflection, logical method, judgment, good sense, and 
the other proper fruits of mental and practical culture, 
were the substratum of all his speeches. Enliven tliese 
solid properties with wit, humor, imagination, and those 
other ethereal gifts, which are the offspring of genius ; 
let the countenance, voice, and action all correspond, and 
we have certainly a cause by no means out of proportion 
with the spicefic effect. 

But these general powers, whether native or acquired, 
belong, in some degree, to all great orators. It was in their 
peculiar combination and exercise that Mr. Prentiss' indi- 
viduality, as a public speaker, consisted. The first thing, 
undoubtedly, that impressed a stranger in listening to one 
of his characteristic speeches, was the absolute sincerity, 
depth and fervor of his personal convictions. Before he 
uttered a word, you felt, by his very look and air, that he 
was deeply in earnest — and no sooner had he opened his 
lips, than you knew it by the quick, responsive sympathy in 
your own bosom. Instantly, a mystic chain seemed thrown 
around you, and, at every new touch of his wizard hand, 
you found yourself instinctively drawing nearer and nearer 
to him ; your understanding becoming enthralled, and your 
heart-strings vibrating as if smitten by an unseen force. 
Such an effect upon his audience never failed to react upou 



470 



MEMOIR OP S. S. PRENTISS. 



his own soul. A friend once said to him, "Prentiss, you 
always mes7nerize me when you speak." He answered, 
" Then it is an afifair of reciprocity, for a multitude always 
electrifies me I" When he saw before him, as he sometimes 
did, five, ten, or twenty thousand people, men, women, and 
children, gazing on him, as if spell-bound ; or heard their 
terrific shouts of joy, it almost maddened him with excite- 
ment. *' I feel at such times," he once said to me, " a kind 
of preternatural rapture ; new thoughts come rushing into 
my mind unbidden, and I seem to myself like one uttering 
oracles. I am as much astonished at my own conceptions as 
any of my auditors ; and when the excitement is over, I 
could no more reproduce them than I could make a 
world I"* 

Closely allied to this deep earnestness was his perfectly 
natural manner of speaking. It would have been as impos- 
sible to associate with him rhetorical tricks and affectation, 
as to associate them with daylight, or with the vivid flash 
of lightning. They were utterly alien from his nature ; 
although a passage occurs, now and then, in his reported 
speeches, which might lead to a contrary impression. 

But though his manner of speaking was perfectly natu- 
ral, it was, at the same time, like that of all consummate 
popular orators, eminently dramatic. With voice, tone, look, 
gesture, and motion, he acted as well as spoke his thoughts. 
This histrionic talent lent not a little of their charm to both 
his conversation and his public addresses. He never spoke 
to advantage when cramped for room. A large space, 
allowing ample scope to walk to and fro, seemed to give 



* " For, consult the acutest poets and speakers, and they will confess, that their 
quickest and most admired conceptions were such as darted into their minds like 
sudden flashes of lightning, they knew not how nor whence ; and not by any cer- 
tain consequence or dependence of one thought upon another, as it is in matter of 
ratiocination." Dr. South. 



HIS ORATORY. 411 

him a sense of freedom, and enabled him to address himself 
more directly to the different portions of his audience. 
There was almost as great eagerness to see his face as to 
hear his voice. When he spoke in Faneuil Hall, he was 
again and again interrupted by the cry, " Look this 
way!" "Prentiss, do turn round and look this wayl"^ 
Sometimes he would single out one of his auditors, whose 
appearance indicated special interest or intelligence, and, 
eye to eye, argue, as if with him alone, the point under dis- 
cussion. On one occasion, he was to speak in the eastern 
part of Mississippi. A gentleman of high character, from 
Georgia, chanced to be in the place, and was extremely 
eager to hear him. Mr. P. had hardly begun his address, 
when his eye caught that of the intelligent stranger, who 
was sitting on the platform. Immediately turning towards 
him, in the most graceful manner, he proceeded to address 
to him a large portion of his speech. Before its close, the 
old gentleman seemed transfixed. He afterwards declared 
that he never before heard or conceived of such a power I 
When highly excited, Mr. Prentiss had a marvellous faculty 
of expression through the countenance, especially if his feel- 
ings had not yet found vent in words. Mr. Thorpe thus 
alludes to this fact in his Reminiscences : 

Although of medium height, there was that in the carriage of 
his head that was astonishingly impressive : it gave a wonderful 
idea of power. I shall never forget him on one occasion, when 
he rose at a public meeting (a political discussion) to reply to an 
antagonist worthy of his steel. His wliole soul was roused — his 
high smooth forehead fairly coruscated. He remained silent for 
some seconds, and only looked. The bald eagle never glanced 
more fiercely from his eyrie ; it seemed as if his deep, dark-gray 
eye would distend until it swallowed up the thousands of his 
audience. For an instant the effect was painful ; he saw it and 
smiled, when a cheer burst from the admiring multitude that 
fairly shook the earth. 



4'?2 



MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 



He had a sweet, clear voice, rather improved than 
impeded by a slight lisp ; and he had trained it to such 
power and compass, that it could be distinctly heard at an 
immense distance. Probably that of Whitefield was hardly 
more capacious. Although perfectly natural, his elocution 
and the whole management of his voice indicated severe 
discipline. Such excellence could never have been reached 
without much study and observation. He was, at times, an 
exceedingly vehement, but never violent speaker ; and his 
tone, gestures, and whole aspect varied incessantly with the 
varying sentiments, passions, and phases of his subject.* 



* The following reflections upon the oratory of Patrick Henry, by the late vener- 
ated Dr. Archibald Alexander, are in so many points applicable to the subject of 
this memoir, that I cannot deny myself the pleasure of quoting them. 

" On the retrospect of so many years, I may be permitted to express my views of 
the extraordinary effects of Henry's eloquence. The remark is obvious, in applica- 
tion not only to him, but to all great orators, that we cannot ascribe these effects 
merely to their intellectual conceptions, or their cogent reasonings, however great ; 
these conceptions and reasons, when put on paper, often fall dead. They are often 
inferior to the arrangements of men whose utterances have little impression. It 
has, indeed, been said, both of AVhitefield and of Henry, that their discourses, when 
reduced to writing, show poorly by the side of men who are no orators. Let me 
illustrate this, by the testimony of one whom I remember as a friend of my youth. 
General Posey was a revolutionary oflBcer, who was second in command, undef 
Wayne, in the expedition against the Indians; a man of observation and cool 
judgment. He was in attendance on the debates of that convention, in which there 
were so many displays of deliberative eloquence. He assured me that after the 
hearing of Patrick Henry's most celebrated speech in that body, he felt himself as 
fully persuaded that the constitution, as adopted, would be our ruin, as of his own 
existence. Yet subsequent reflection restored his former judgment, and his well- 
considered opinion resumed its place. 

"The power of Henry's eloquence was due, first, to the greatness of his emotion 
and passion, accompanied with a versatility which enabled him to assume at once 
any emotion or passion which was suited to his ends. Not less indispensable, 
secondly, was a matchless perfection of the organs of expression, including the 
entire apparatus of voice, intonation, pause, gestures, attitude, and indescribable 
play of countenance. In no instance did he ever indulge in an expression that was 
not instantly recognized as nature itself; yet some of his penetrating and subduing 
tones were absolutely peculiar, and as inimitable as they were indescribable. These 
were felt by every hearer, in all tlieir force. His mightiest feelings were sometimes 
indicated and communicated by a long pause, aided by an eloquent aspect, and 
some significant use of his finger. The sympathy between mind and mind is inex- 
plicable. 



HIS ORATORY. 4*J3 

He was fully aware of the power of words, and their 
yital connectiou with the thought or sentiment which they 
embody. He derided the notion that it matters little how a 
man speaks, provided he be in earnest, and speaks to the 
point. Form and style he considered almost as essential to 
the popular orator as to the poet ; and he cultivated both 
with great care. In this respect, he was, I think, quite 
generally misunderstood ; his amazing facility of utterance 
naturally misleading his hearers. While all admired his 
inimitable diction, most persons supposed it to be purely a 
gift of nature ; and certainly no man could ever have spoken 
as he did, unless to the manner born ; but neither coukl any 
man ever speak as he did, without much discipline. As well 
might it be pretended that such a painter as Raphael, or 
such a sculptor as Tliorwaldsen, attained his consummate 
excellence in virtue of mere native endowment. Oratory is 
as truly an art as sculpture, or painting ; and perfection is 
no more attainable in the one than in the other, without 
patient and severe culture. Mr. Prentiss' whole life, from 
boyhood, was a school of oratorical discipline ; his reading 



"Where the channels of communication are open, the faculty revealing inward 
passion great, and the expression of it sudden and visible, the effects are extraordi- 
nary. Let these shocks of influence be repeated again and again, and all other 
opinions and ideas are, for the moment, excluded ; the whole mind is brought into 
unison with that of the speaker ; and the spell-bound listener, tUl the cause ceases, 
ia under an entire fascination. Then, perhaps, the charm ceases, upon reflection, 
and the infatuated hearer resumes his ordinary state. 

" Patrick Henry, of course, owed much to his singular insight into the feelings of 
the common mind. In great cases, he scanned his jury, and formed his mental 
estimate ; on this basis he founded his appeals to their predilections and character 
It is what other advocates do in a lesser degree. 

*' When he knew that there were conscientious or religious men among the jury, 
he would most solemnly address himself to their sense of right, and.would adroitly 
bring in Scriptural citations. If this handle was not offered, he would lay bare the 
sensibility of patriotism. Thus it was, when he succeeded in rescuing the man who 
had deliberately shot down a neighbor; who, moreover, lay under the odious suspi- 
cion of being a tory, and who was proved to have refused supplies to a brigade of 
the American army."— [>S«6 Life of Dr. Alexander, p. 190. 



4*14 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

when a child, his debatin^^ club in college, and his whole 
after career. And is it conceivable that language, the very 
instrument of his art, should never have been a matter 
of study ? Was it mere untutored instinct that taught him 
to select his words, and fashion them into the goodly struc- 
ture of clear, senseful, and impassioned utterance? Far 
from it. He sought out the best form both of thought and 
expression — not for the sake of show, but of practical effect. 
He held that it was impossible to speak too well to any 
audience, and that the impression would rarely fail exactly 
to correspond, mteris paribus, with the genuine excellence of 
the speech in style and sentiment. In 1844 he told me that 
it almost pained him to write a common letter, he had 
become so scrupulous and particular in the choice of words ; 
unless he was sure of having said what he wished to say 
in the most proper manner, he felt annoyed. The idea of 
excellence haunted him, even in such minute matters aa 
writing a letter to a young friend, or making a speech to 
a gathering of backwoodsmen. His few manuscripts which 
remain, indicate slow composition ; they contain numerous 
erasures, not merely of words, but of whole sentences. The 
last letter I ever received from him, though written in great 
weakness, shows his usual care in respect to style. 

But no sooner had he laid down the pen and begun to 
speak than all hesitancy disappeared ; the excitement of 
friendly discourse, but still more the presence of a popular 
assembly, seemed to put his mind in a glow, clarified his 
memory, gave him instant and absolute command of all his 
mental stores, whether of knowledge, reflection, or language ; 
every sign of effort vanished, and all appeared as natural 
and easy as the flow of a crystal stream. It can hardly be 
doubted that his more important speeches were carefully 
premeditated ; but not one of them was ever written ; nop 
do I believe that a single passage in any one of them waa 



HIS ORATORY. 4*15 

ever put on paper until after its delivery. A few leading 
points and landmarks were fixed in his memory : all the 
rest — language, style, imagery — was left to the excitement 
of the occasion,* 

I do not recollect, either in conversation, or in a public 



* The following skeleton of a lecture, delivered after his removal to New Orleans, 
in behalf of a charitable institution, is the only thing of the kind among his papers : 

*' THE TENDENCIES OF THE AGE — ITS PRACTICAL CHARACTER. 

"1st. On the Physical. 

" 2d. On the Intellectual world. 

♦< As to the first: Our advance is all practical, and at the expense of imagination, 
fancy, poetry, &c. Xaiural philosophy has fixed everything — the stars have no 
astrology, the trees no dryades, the streams no naiades, the moonlight no fairies ; 
the old elements are destroyed ; air consists of oxygen, nitrogen. We have analysed 
everything: even in agriculture, the grass is a compound, the flowers owe their 

fragi-ance or their beauty to a little more alkali or a little less carbon 

Electricity, mechanism, steam, navigation, 4c. All the sciences have but taken us 
behind the scenes, made us acquainted with nature's laboratory, and given us a full 
command of all her powers. We can do all but create. The tendency of all this ii 
atilitarian, selfish, money-making. 

"2d. Physical discovery in the arts of printing, in continual communications of 
commerce, travelling, Ac, has equalized knowledge, but has madte no improvement 
in moral character. 

" The same bad passions exist — greater selfishness, greater love of gold (note its 
existence in all ages ; but especially the fury that now prevails ; note the very 
necessity of such a charity as the present). 

"Equality of knowledge has improved political ideas, and produced political 
equality, but has not diminished selfishness, nor love of gain, its natural accompa- 
niment. 

"The tendencies of the age are, then : 1st. Utilitarianism — a complete knowledge 
of physical nature, and control of her powers. 2d. Democracy. 3d. Individual 
selfishness, especially love of money. 

" The consequences are a greater amount of physical eiyoyment, but a gradual 
deterioration of the fine arts, especially of poetry, from the destruction of it3 
sources. 

" The Graces alone remain of all the ancient Mythology. 

" God teaches us as we teach our children ; performs the most difficult paiis of 
the lesson, but still leaves us something to do ourselves. 

" How easily He could have bridged the ocean ! yet He left us to do it ; and henco 
man invented ships. How readily He could have deepened the channel of the Mis- 
sissippi, or raised the banks ; but He left us to make levees. So He might have 
healed all evils, cured all cares, and dried widows' tears, and orphans' sighs; made 
the poor equal to the rich, Ac, Ac, Ac. ; but this He left to us, thinking, doubtless, 
n would be a pleasure for us. He explained most of the ptizzle of Itfe, but left to 
our own skill the fitting of a few pieces." 



416 MEMOIR OF S, S. PRENTISS. 

speech, ever to have heard him recall, change, or misuse a 
word. One evening, daring the winter of 1836-T, before he 
had become known outside of Mississippi, he told me that, 
althoui2:h he could not enter a drawinpr-room and accost a 
lady, without trembling and mental embarrassment, he was 
utterly unconscious of any such feeling in appearing before 
a public assembly, however large or grave. He illustrated 
the point after this odd manner, " If I were, of a sudden, to 
be transported to Ola England, and let down, through the 
roof, into the assembled House of Lords, I doubt not, the 
instant I found myself on my legs, I could begin a speech 
to their Lordships on any subject, which I understood, without 
the slightest hesitation or embarassmcnt.''* 

This absolute command of his mental forces never 
appeared more surprising than in the ease with which he 
would frame images, or institute comparisons for the illus- 
tration of his subject. The loftier and bolder his metaphors, 
the more successful they were. His figures never halted or 
limped : the minutest parts were as distinct as the general 
outline. He told me himself, the year before his death, 
that he never found any difficulty in completing or carrying 
out the most complicate metaphor. However high he 
might attempt to soar, he always reached the point, and 
then descended at his pleasure. This arose, probably, in 
part from the intensity of his passion, which is ever a law to 
itself; partly from the vital energy, that vis logica, by 
which his intellect was so highly charged. Every faculty 
of his mind seemed to act with the unerring method and 
instinct of nature. His great speeches were the living pro- 
ducts of his reason and imagination. There was nothing 



* I recall only three or four occasions on which he ever spoke to me about his 
oratory; and then it was in answer to specific and somewhat urgent questions of 
mine. He seemed as devoid of all vain-glory on the subject as if he had been 
dumb. 



HIS ORATORY. 471 

vague or dead about them. What has been so finely said 
of his early pastor, Dr. Payson, might be said with equal 
justice of him : " His thoughts flew from him in every pos' 
sible variety and beauty, like birds from a South American 
forest." 

The main peculiarities of his oratory have been so fally 
brought out in the preceding narrative, that it seems need- 
less further to dwell upon them here. There is one point, 
however, which deserves to be more distinctly mentioned. 
It is thus referred to by Judge Wilkinson : " Your brother's 
talent at ridicule was, in my opinion, the most effective of 
all the weapons in his intellectual armory. When pathos, 
logic, and invective, all failed of their effect, he never failed 
to accomplish his purpose (if this purpose was to over- 
whelm and baffle an opponent) by means of ridicule. It 
was the arrow of the archer in the hands of Locksley, 
whenever he deigned to use it. His ridicule did not irri- 
tate and madden, but it overpowered. The victim sunk 
completely transfixed, or went away abashed and cowed. 
It seemed to disarm ferocity of its power to strike, as the 
constrictor with an effort crushes the bones of the buffalo, 
and leaves him prostrate and powerless. I never knew any 
ridicule like the ridicule of Prentiss." 

While Mr. Prentiss was largely indebted to nature, and 
not a little to circumstances of time or place, for his success 
as a public speaker, he was hardly less indebted to books. 
In this respect he possessed a great advantage over many 
of his eloquent contemporaries. His classical training, and 
his familiarity with the Bible, Shakespeare, Milton, Bacon, 
and the other great models of English sjoeech, imparted a 
richness, strength, and felicity to his diction, as well as a 
dignity to his sentiments, that could hardly be attained by 
any other process. But it was the rich stores, gathered 
from the wide field of fiction and romance, which, perhaps, 



418 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

contribnted most of all to the charm of his public speeches, 
as of his conversation. The old classical mythology was as 
familiar to him as the history of his native land ; so, too, 
was the whole region of chivalry ; while his acquaintance 
with modern novels, from Fielding and Smollet to Scott, 
Thackeray and Dickens, was complete. And he always 
said, that a classical allusion, a quotation from the poets, 
or an illustration from Scott, was as good in the backwoods 
of Mississippi as in the halls of Congress. He was very 
fond of resorting to -^sop's Fables, and applying their wise 
conclusions to the passing events and politics of the day.* 
He would sometimes do it with great effect. In truth, no 
kind of knowledge came amiss to him, when addressing the 
multitude. 

* Mr. Thorpe, in describing one of the menagerie scenes already mentioned, thua 
refers to his skill in subsidizing the animal creation : — 

" The ' boys ' decided that Prentiss should ' next time ' speali from the top of the 
■ lion's cage. Never was the menagerie more crowded. At the proper time, the can- 
didate gratified his constituents, and mounted his singular rostrum. I was told by 
a person, who professed to be an eye-witness, that the whole affair presented a sin- 
gular mixture of the terrible and the comical. Prentiss was, as usual, eloquent, 
and, as if ignorant of the novel circumstances with which he was surrounded, went 
deeply into the matter in hand, his election. For awliile, the audience and the 
animals were quiet — the former listening, the latter eyeing the speaker with grave 
intensity. The first burst of applause electrified the menagerie; the elephant 
threw liis trunk into tlie air, and echoed back the noise, while the tigers and bears 
significantly growled. On went Pkestiss, and as each peculiar animal vented his 
rage or approbation, he most ingeniously wrought in his habits, as a fac-simile of 
some man or passion. In the meanwhile, the stately king of beasts, who had been 
quietly treading the mazes of 'his prison, became alarmed at the footsteps over his 
head, and placing his mouth upon the floor of his cage, made everything shake by 
his terrible roar. This, joined with the already excited feelings of the audience, 
caused the ladies to shriek, and a fearful commotion for a moment followed. 
Prentiss, equal to every occasion, changed his tone and manner ; he commenced 
a playful strain, and introduced the fox, the jackal and liyena, and capped the 
climax by likening some well-known political opponent to a grave baboon that pre- 
sided over the ' cage with monkeys.' The resemblance was instantly recognized, 
and bursts of laughter followed, that literally set many into convulsions. The 
baboon, all unconscious of the attention he was attracting, suddenly assumed a 
gi'imace, and then a serious face, when Prentiss exclaimed : ' I see, my fine fellow, 
that your feelings are hurt by my unjust comparison ; and I humbly beg your par- 
don.* The effect of all this may be vaguely imagined, but it cannot be described.** 



HIS ORATORY. 4*? 9 

But, after all, his great power, as a popular orator, lay 
m the truth and importance of the sentiments which he 
uttered. He never addressed the people merely to please 
them or himself. From the beginning to the end of his 
political career, his aim seemed to be to imbue the popular 
mind with just and patriotic sentiments. Whatever the 
particular topic of his address, and however varied the 
style in which he presented it, a few simple fundamental 
principles formed the staple of nearly all his speeches. 
Nothing could be further removed from the " empty insin- 
cere speech," chastised with such a righteous '* growl of 
inpatient malediction" by Carlyle in his Stump-orator.'*^ 

This will appear sufficiently evident from a brief analysis 
of his political character and opinions. 

Every reader of this Memoir must see that Mr. Prentiss 
had little taste for public life. What he said on returning 
home from Congress, in 1838, expressed a feeling which only 
increased in strengh to the end of his days : " The ancient 
gladiator pursued a more enviable occupation than that of 
the modern politician." Indeed, with all his power of lan- 
guage, words seemed to fail him, when he strove to give vent 
to his opinion of the selfishness, profligacy, low cunning, 
trickery, blackguardism, and calumnious spirit, which at 
once debased and envenomed American politics. The abom- 
inable stories circulated respecting himself, during his first 



* " Probably there is not in nature a more distracted phantasm than your com- 
mon-place eloquent speaker, as he is found on platforms, in parliaments, on Ken- 
tucky stumps, at tavern dinners, in windy, empty, insincere times like ours. The 
' excellent stump-orator,' as our admiring Yankee friends define him, he who in any 
occurrent set of circumstances, can start forth, mount upon his stump, his ros- 
trum, his tribune — his place in parliament, or any other ready elevation — and pour 
forth from there his appropriate, * excellent speech,' his interpretation of the said 
circumstances, in such manner as poor, windy mortals round him shall cry bravo 
to^he is not an artist I can much admire, as matters go ! Alas ! he is, in gene- 
ral, merely the windiest mortal of their all, and is admired for being so, into tb« 
bargain." 



480 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

canvass in Mississippi, would hardly be credited, were these 
pages to be soiled by mentioning them. And this was only 
a specimen of the moral ruffianism with which some of the 
purest and most distinguished statesmen in the country were 
habitually treated. He was, however, very far, especially 
during his later years, from attributing the evil exclusively 
to one party. He thought it grew out of general causes 
and infected, more or less, all parties. In truth, he came to 
have little faith in professional politicians of any denomina- 
tion. " Selfishness, meanness, and corruption," he writes to 
a friend, in 1848, "constitute the stock in trade of nine- 
tenths of the politicians of the present day." He deemed it 
one of the worst signs of the times, that such men so often 
sway the political influence of a whole State, and even creep 
into high places in the Nation. How often, too, do they 
verify the lines of the poet : 

" A falcon, towei-ing in his pride of place, 
Was by a mousing owl hawlied at and killed." 

No : it is not to mere politicians we must look for the cor- 
rection of public evils and the perpetuity of the Republic. 

His partyism, as Mr. Wise remarks, was little else than 
*' pure patriotism." To mere party interests and plans as 
such, he felt a singular indifference ; indeed, he often poured 
contempt upon them. He was a very decided, even enthu- 
siastic Whig ; but it was solely because he believed that 
party embodied most fully the true principles and ancient 
spirit of the government. His grandfather was a disciple 
of Washington ; his father belonged to the old Republican 
party ; and Whig principles, as expounded by Mr. Clay and 
Mr. Webster, he seemed to regard as essentially the same 
with genuine Washiugtonian Republicanism. His political 
sympathies and antipathies were certainly very strong ; but 
they were free to an extent truly remarkable, from the gall 



HIS POLITICAL CHARACTER. 481 

of personal animosity. He would attack the party and prin- 
^ciples of his opponents in the most severe, not to say unwar- 
rantable, terms ; but the instant his speech was over, he 
would take them by the hand with all the cordiality of 
friendship. I speak now generally ; for in the case of Repu- 
diation he did, certainly, carry his public hostility into pri- 
vate life. Mr. Wise observes that, intimate as were their 
relations, he never heard Mr. P. " utter a scandal." I do 
not remember ever to have heard him speak in personal dis- 
like of any politician in the country, North or South, Whig, 
Democrat, Free-Soiler, or Abolitionist ; nor is there a sin- 
gle expression of the sort in the whole range of his corres- 
pondence. Although writing often in the very heat of party 
conflicts, he scarcely ever alludes to persons. When denied 
his seat in Congress, for example, by the casting vote of Mr. 
Polk, and thus compelled to go through the toil of a second 
canvass, he gave vent to his indignation in public addresses ; 
but not the slightest allusion to the point occurs in any of 
his letters. How full an ordinary politician would have been 
of the injury done, as he conceived, to his individual rights 
and dignity I It was this entire freedom from the petty pas- 
sions that made Mr. Prentiss so beloved by many Democrats. 
It seemed against his very nature to do a mean thing. But 
not only was he above the littleness of indulging in personal 
animosities against his political opponents ; he was capable 
of admiring what was noble in them. He had a profound 
dislike, for example, to many features of Gen. Jackson's cha- 
racter and public policy. His earlier popular addresses 
were fiercely anti-Jackson ; and he always regarded " Old 
Hickory" as having initiated a system of party politics 
highly disastrous to the best interests of the country. But, 
for all that, he could not deny his greatness ; and there was 
Bomethinir in the firmness and moral heroism with which he 
" took the responsibility," and carried through his measures, 

VOL. II. 21 



482 MEMOIR OF S. S. IRENTISS. 

that even excited his admiration. In giving names to the 
party-leaders of the day, as he loved to do, Gen. Jackson 
was " the old Tennessee Lion." Long before his death his 
pohtical feelings were so softened, that he could hardly be 
regarded any more as a party man. Patriotic solicitude 
seemed to have absorbed nearly all his remaining interest in 
politics. The old issues, indeed, were already fast passing 
into oblivion. 

The history of the two great national parties that ruled the 
country during a quarter of a century, from the accession 
of Gen. Jackson, in 1829, to the passage of the Nebraska 
bill, in 1854, is yet to be written. Time will, perhaps, give 
judgment that both were partly right and partly wrong ; 
that each committed grave errors, and that, on the whole, 
neither would have done so much good, or so little perma- 
nent evil, without the help of the other. At any rate, 
Buch names as Henry Clay, Andrew Jackson, John Quincy 
Adams, Daniel Webster, John C. Calhoun, Silas Wright, 
and Zachary Taylor — not to mention others — demonstrate 
that this eventful period in the annals of the Kepubhc was 
not barren of wise, patriotic, or great men. 

Without saying more of his mere party relations, it may 
not be without interest to state some of his views on gene- 
ral politics. 

There were, probably, few men of his age in the United 
States, who had reflected more upon the philosophy of 
government, or who had studied with greater care the 
peculiar structure and genius of our own. He delighted 
to discuss the abstruse questions which relate to the organi- 
zation and ultimate principles of the social system. His 
discourse on such topics was rendered peculiarly instructive 
and interesting by the happy manner in which he would illus- 
trate his views. The mere abstract argument was almost 
lost sight of "in the life, freshness, and practical value of 



HIS VIEWS OF OUR POLITICAL SYSTEM. 483 

his remarks and notices ; truths, plucked as they are grow- 
ing, and delivered to you with the dew on them ; the fair 
earnings of an observing eye, armed and kept on the watch 
by thought and meditation."* Early in his public career 
he was obliged to discuss some of the fundamental prin- 
ciples of our American system of government. But Repu- 
diation, more than any other subject, gave impulse and 
definite shape to his political reflection. The doctrine was 
new in this country, and in some of its aspects, new in 
the world. The manner in which it was broached, com- 
pelled its opponents to argue before the people elementary 
truths of the social system ; truths which the wildest innova- 
tion had never before called in question. In expounding 
these truths on the stump, as also in observing the prac- 
tical causes and effects of Repudiation, he became most 
deeply impressed with the perilous fallacies on the subject 
of liberty and popular sovereignty, referred to in a pre- 
vious chapter. But his whole public life tended to the 
same result. From his youthful eulogy on Lafayette to the 
election of Gen. Taylor, I have found no record of a single 
speech or address, in which is not perceptible an ardent devo- 
tion to some important principle of political morality. 

He laid great stress upon a right view of the form of our 
government. It is, he contended, a representative republic 
in contradistinction to a monarchy, an aristocracy, or a 
simple democracy. By this is not meant that there is not 
in it a large democratic element ; for it is acknowledged, 
on all hands, that the people are the ultimate source of 
political power. JSTor is it denied that there is an aristocra- 
tic element ; for the whole structure of the Senate, for 
example, is based upon this principle. Nor is the monar- 
chical element excluded ; for the President of the United 

♦ Coleridge'8 Tribute to his friend Thomas Poole. 



484 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

States, during his four years of office, actually wields more 
power than is now wielded by the royal Executive of Great 
Britain. He is, in fact, a quadrennial elective monarch, so 
far as that term indicates government carried on by the will 
of one man. The prime minister of the British Crown would 
not dare to retain office a day, in the face of a large hostile 
majority in Parliament. No King or Queen of England 
would require him to do so. But the American Executive 
can retain or dismiss his cabinet, in spite of any congressional 
majority ; in spite of any majority short of two-thirds in 
both houses, he can veto the entire legislation of the coun- 
try. All this the fundamental law allows him to do, and it 
is a power which he is constantly exercising. Our govern- 
ment, then, is constituted on peculiar principles ; it is a 
mixed system, in which, however, the popular or democratic 
element forms the base, and is the ruling power. But a 
pure or absolute democracy it is not ; nor can it become such 
without self-destruction. So far from being based exclusively 
upon population, or controlled by a numerical majority, it 
is, in important respects, quite the reverse. Nothing could 
well be further from the theory of such a democracy than 
many provisions of the Organic Law. The Federal Consti- 
tution is almost as different from the theory of government 
by a numerical majority as it is from a monarchy. Under 
it, Delaware, with a population of some 100,000, is as 
strong in the Senate (and all national legislation must pass 
the Senate) as New York, with some 3,000,000. In electing 
a President, Delaware has three votes, and two of them are 
given to her wholly irrespective of population. Or, should 
the election of President go into the House of Representa- 
tives, then Delaware, with her 100,000, has the same voice 
as New York with her 3,000,000. This is only a specimen 
of the numerical inequalities which mark the whole frame- 
work of the government. Such is the Constitution of the 



THE AMERICAN SYSTEM OF GOVERXMENT. 485 

United States ; but surely it is playing with words to call 
this democracy.* Taking this view of the matter, Mr. 



* The reader will find this whole subject discussed with great ability in Mr. Cal- 
houn's Essay on the Constitution and Government of the United States. Soe 
Calhotm's Works, vol. 1, p. 16S, et seq. Here follow a few paragraphs : " It is not 
ah uncommon Impression, that the government of the United States is a government 
based simply on population ; that numbers are its only element, and a numerical 
majority its only controlling power ; in brief, that It is an absolute democracy. No 
opinion can be more erroneous. So far from being true, it is, in all the aspects ia 
which it can be regarded, pre-eminently a government of the concurrent majority; 
with an organization more complex and refined, indeed, but far better calculated to 
express the sense of the whole (in the only mode by which this can be fully and 
truly done, to wit, by ascertaining the sense of all its parts) than any government 
ever fomied, ancient or modern. Instead of population, mere numbers, being the 
sole element, the numerical majority is, strictly speaking, excluded, even as one of 
its elements, as I sliall proceed to establish by an appeal to figures— beginning with 
the formation of the Constitution, regarded as the fundamental law which ordained 
and established the government; and closing with the organization of the govern- 
ment itself, regarded as the agent or trustee to carry its powers into effect." 

After going tlirough this examination, he proceeds: " It thus appears, on n view 
of the whole, that it was the object of the framers of the Constitution, in organizing 
the government, to give to the two elements, of which it is composed, separate, but 
concurrent action ; and, consequently, a veto on each other, whenever the organiza- 
tion of the department, or the nature of the power would admit: and, when this 
could not be done, so to blend the two as to make as near an approach to it, in 
effect, as possible. It is also apparent that the government, regarded apart from 
the Constitution, is the government of the concurrent, and not of the numerical 
majority. But to have an accurate conception how it is calculated to act in prac- 
tice, and to establish, beyond doubt, that it was neither intended to be, nor is, in 
fact, the government of the numerical majority, it will be necessary again to appeal 

to figures. 

♦'That, in organizing a government with different departments, in each of which 
the States are represented in a twofold aspect, in the manner stated, it was the 
object of the framers of the Constitution, to make it more, instead of less popular 
than it would have been as a government of the mere numerical majority— that is 
as requiring a more numerous instead of a less numerous constituency to carry its 
powers into execution— may be inferred from the fact, that such actually is the 
effect. Indeed, the necessary effect of the concurrent majority is to make the 
government more popular ; that is, to require more wills to put it in action, than if 
any one of the majorities of which it is composed, were its sole element, as will be 
apparent by reference to figures. 

"If the House, which represents population, estimated in federal numbers, had 
been invested with the sole power of legislation, then six of the larger States, to wit, 
New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Ohio, xMussachnsetts, and Tennessee, with a fede- 
ral population of 8,216,279, would have had tlie power of making laws for the other 
twenty-four, with a federal poi.ulation of 7,911,325. On the other hand, if the Sen- 



486 MEMOIR OF S. S. TRENTISS. 

Prentiss maintained that, so far as democracy meant govern- 
ment based upon the will of the people, in the sense of a 
numerical majority, the whole theory is false, unconstitu- 



ate had been invested with the sole power, sixteen of the smallest States — embrac- 
ing Maryland as the largest — with a federal population of 3,411,672, would have had 
the power of legislating for the other fourteen, with a population of 12,775,932. 
But the Constitution, in giving each body a negative on the other, in all matters of 
legislation, makes it necessary that a majority of each should concur to pass a bill, 
before it becomes an act ; and the smallest number of States and population, by 
which this can be efifected is six of the largest voting for it in the House of Repre- 
sentatives, and ten of the smaller, uniting with them in their vote, in the Senate. 
The ten smaller, including New Hampshire as the largest, have a federal population 
of 1,346,575 ; which, added to that of the six larger, would make 9,572,852. So that 
no bill can becon^ a law, with less than the united vote of sixteen States, represent- 
ing a constituency containing a federal population of 9,572,852, against fourteea 
States, representing a like population of 6,614,752. 

" But, when passed, the bill is subject to the President's approval or disapproval. 
If he disapprove, or, as it is usually termed, vetoes it, it cannot become a law unless 
passed by two-thirds of the members of both bodies. The House of Representatives 
consists of 228, two-thirds of which is 152, which, therefore, is the smallest number 
that can overcome his veto. It would take ten of the larger States, of which Georgia 
is the smallest, to make up that number — the federal population of which is 10,853,175 
— and, in the Senate, it would require the votes of twenty States to overrule it, andi 
of course, ten of the larger united with ten of the smaller. But the ten ?maller 
States have a federal population of only 1,346,575, as has been stated, which, added 
to that or the ten larger, would give 12,199,748, as the smallest population by which 
his veto can be overruled, and the act become a law. Even then, it is liable to be 
pronounced unconstitutional by the judges, should it, in any case before them, come 
in conflict with their views of the Constitution — a decision which, in respect to indi- 
viduals, operates as an absolute veto, which can only be overruled by an amend- 
ment of the Constitution. In all these calculations, I assume a full House, and full 
votes, and that members vote according to the will of their constituents." 

Having analyzed the law regulating the election of President, he adds: "From 
what has been stated, the conclusion follows, irresistibly, that the Constitution and 
the government, regarding the latter apart from the former, rest, throughout, on the 
principle of the concurrent majority ; and that it is, of course, a Republic — a consti- 
tutional democracy, in contradistinction to an absolute democracy — and that the 
theory which regards it as a government of the mere numerical majority rests on a 
gross and groundless misconception. So far is this from being the case, the numeri- 
cal majority was entirely excluded as an element, throughout the whole process of 
forming and ratifying the Constitution ; and, although admitted as one of the two 
elements, in the organization of the government, it was with the important qualifi- 
cation, that it should be the numerical majority of the population of the several 
States, regarded in their corporate character, and not of the whole Union, regarded 
as one community. And, further than this, it was to be the numerical majority, not 
of their entire population, but of their federal population, which, as has been shown, 



THE AMERICAN SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT. 487 

tional, and fraught, like all fandamental error, witli endless 
mischief. 

It was the fortunate position of the sage founders of our 
political system, that they could not construct a government 
upon the theory of simple democracy ; the materials, with 
which they were compelled to build, utterly precluded it. 
But it was also their wisdom that they would not have done 
so, if they could. A purely democratic Constitution would 
have rendered impossible that balance of powers and those 
manifold checks, which they all deemed essential to a stable 
and free government. 

Along with right views of the form of our government, 
Mr. Prentiss attached the highest importance to right views 
of its practical methods. It is throughout a representative 
system. That the people are the source of political power, 

is estimated artificially, by excluding two-fifths of a large portion of the population 
of many of the States of the Union. Even with these important qualifications, it 
was admitted as the less prominent of the two. With the exception of the impeach- 
ing power, it has no direct participation in the functions of any department of the 
government, except the legislative ; while the other element participates in some 
of the most important functions of the executive, and, in the constitution of the 
Senate, as a court to try impeachments, in the highest of the judicial functions. 
It was, in fact, admitted, not because it was the numerical majority, nor on the 
ground that, as such, it ought, of right to constitute one of its elements— much less 
the only one— but for a very different reason. In the Federal Constitution, the 
equality of the States, without regard to population, size, wealth, institutions, or 
any other consideration, is a fundamental principle ; as much so as is the equality 
of their citizens, in the governments of the several States, without regard to pro- 
perty, influence, or superiority of any description. As, in the one, the citizens form 
the constituent body; so, in the other, the States. But the latter, in forming a 
government for their mutual protection and welfare, deemed it proper, as a matter 
of fairness and sound policy, and not of right, to assign to it an increased weight, 
bearing some reasonable proportion to the different amount of means which the 
several States might, respectively, contribute to tiie accomplishment of the ends 
for which they were about to enter into a federal union. For this purpose, they 
admitted what is called federal numbers, as one of the elements of the government 
about to be established ; while Hiey were, at the same time so jealous of the effects 
of admitting it, with all its restrictions, that, in order to guard effectually the other 
element, they provided that no State, without its consent, should be deprived of its 
equal suffrage in the Senate ; so as to place their equality in that important body, 
beyond the reach even of the amending power." 



488 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

and ultimately sovereign, is admitted on all hands ; nobody 
disputes this — it is the universal creed of the country. But 
do the people immediately exercise this sovereign power ? 
Far from it. It is exercised by their representatives. How- 
could it be otherwise, in a large country like ours ? A 
direct government by the people is literally impossible ; and 
it would be a hasty, impulsive, and anarchical thing, if it 
were possible. How immeasurably more excellent is the 
actual system of our Constitution I The legislative will of 
the people is represented in the two houses of Congress. 
The executive will finds its organ in the President. The 
judicial will acts through the Supreme Court and its 
branches. Thus the sovereign power, originally in the 
people, is, by their own free act, distributed through the 
several departments of the Federal Government, to be exer- 
cised in the name and for the good of the whole. 

Our government is, therefore, at once popular and legal, 
or constitutional. It is a government of the people, inas- 
much as they are the source of its power, as they ordained 
it, and its functionaries are their agents and representatives. 
It is a government of law, inasmuch as the people them- 
selves have virtually sworn to obey it, are bound by. its 
authority, and cannot alter or even amend it, except in 
accordance with its own provisions.* But there is nothing 

* A few paragraphs from the Constitution will explain this statement: "We, 
the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establist 
justice, ensure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defence, promote tho 
general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, 
do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America." — Pre- 
amble to the Const. 

"All Irgislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United 
States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives." — Art. 1. 
sec. 1. 

"The executive power shall be vested in a President of the United States of 
America." — Art. 2, sec. 1. 

"The^'MfZecirtZ power of the United States shall be vested in one Supreme Court, 
and in such inferior courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and esta* 



OUR POLITICAL SYSTEM. 489 

hnmiliating in this subjection of the people to law ; it was 
a voluntary act ; and, like the obedience of the soul to 
God, is the highest possible expression of their freedom and 
self-government. 

This sovereignty of law in our system of government is 
its conservative principle, and a chief safeguard of the popu- 
lar liberties. The highest form of political offence in the 
United States — the true crimen lescB majestatis — is treason 
against the Law ; for in that are wrapt up the holiest 
interests, rights, and immunities of the Nation. 

It follows very clearly from the foregoing premises, that 
the wilt of the people is not found in the popular assemblages, 
or masses, however numerous. They may express the feel- 
ings, wishes, opinions, or even deliberate judgment of a 
majority of the people ; but all these must pass through a 
distinct constitutional and legal process, ere they become 
stamped with the authentic signature of the sovereign popu- 
lar will. In other words, the will of the people is expressed, 
and can be ascertained, only through the modes prescribed 
by themselves in their fundamental law. Every act of the 
Legislature, performed in the exercise of its legitimate 
powers, is the will of the people ; so is every such act of 
the Executive ; and so is every decision of the Courts of 
Justice. In no other way can the people know their own 
will. This is our republican idea of popular sovereignty, 
and any other is as lawless and unconstitutional as it is 
un-American. 



blish. The judj^es, both of the supreme and inferior courts, shall hold their offices 
during good behavior." — Art. 8, sec. 1. • 

" This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pur- 
suance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority 
of the United States, shall be the supkkhk law of the land ; and the judges in every 
State shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to 
the contrary notwithj.anding." — Art. 6, sec. 2. 

VOL. n. 21* 



490 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

At the very outset of his political life, Mr. Prentiss 
encountered wholly different views of our government from 
these ; views based upon the notion that it is a simple demo- 
cracy ; that its controlling element is that of a numerical 
majority, or " the democracy of numbers," as it was called ; 
and that the will of the people is immediately sovereign, and 
is found in " the masses," or primary assemblies, irrespective 
of constitutional or legal forms. Referring to such views in 
his speech on admitting delegates from the new counties, he 
says : "I look upon them with horror and alarm. I 
denounce them as disorganizing and revolutionary. They 
are the same doctrines which once prevailed in the Jacobin 
Clubs of Paris, during the worst times of the French Revo- 
lution ; and, if generally adopted, will produce the same 
results here that marked their progress through that bloody 
period. Sir, I do not know what gentlemen mean by the 
forms of the Constitution, or what right they have to say that 
one part is not as substantial as another. Did gentlemen, 
when they took an oath to support the Constitution, make a 
mental reservation that they might violate its forms ? What 
is the criterion, and who is to be judge of what is form and 
what substance ? If what is form can be violated with 
impunity, I fear the instrument will soon share the fate of 
the painting which the artist invited his friends to criticise. 
They all pronounced it beautiful, a chef d^muvre of the art. 
He then requested that each one would take a pencil, and 
strike from it such portion as he deemed objectionable. 
They did so, and the mortified artist found no vestige of his 
picture remaining." 

These manly sentiments he had occasion again to express 
in his speeches on the Mississippi contested election. But 
it was in discussing the points embraced in Repudiation and 
the Dorr Rebellion, as has been remarked, that he becam© 



OTJR POLITICAL SYSTEM, 491 

most deeply impressed with tlie fatal tendency of tlie doc 
trines in question. 

Holding these views, he maintained that our American 
system of free government is proper to ourselves ; springing 
out of our ancestral spirit, laws, customs, race, ancient fran- 
chises, social institutions, and peculiar circumstances. Civil 
liberty always has been and must be an historical growth ; 
it cannot be improvised. Unless organized in wise and fixed 
methods and institutions, it will remain, at the best, but a 
grand sentiment and aspiration.. There are in the world as 
many ideas and kinds of liberty as there are of religion. 
There is the old English liberty. There is the French lib- 
erty. There is what they call liberty in Central and South 
America. There is the popular constitutional American 
liberty ; partly our Anglo-Saxon birthright ; in part the 
spontaneous, though slow, growth of our native soil ; partly 
wrought out for us by the heroic deeds, statesmanlike 
deliberation, wisdom, and patriotic spirit of our venerated 
sires. It is a composite system ; at once practical and com- 
prehensive ; stable and progressive ; fruitful in generous, 
humane ideas, and yet far removed from visionary extrava- 
gance. It is not absolutely perfect, and yet it is, in theory 
at least, so near to such perfection as Is attainable in the pre- 
sent state of human nature, that we may well regard it both 
with gratitude and admiration. But let us never confound 
it with alien systems ; nor attempt to inoculate it with the 
spirit of political propagandism, or of an abstract, impracti- 
cable philanthropy. Especially let us guard its great secu- 
rities — the Union and the Constitution ; these are to Ame- 
rican liberty what the body is to the soul. 

Such being his views of American liberty as virtually 
bound up with the Union, Constitution and Laws, it is not 
surprising that he laid the utmost stress upon the patriotic 



492 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS, 

sentiment. He thought the love of liberty, inherent in every 
American bosom, was in danger of becoming severed from 
love to the Union and Constitution. Yet, without the 
latter, the former could only become hostile to the institu- 
tions of the country. What but a strong and intelligent 
patriotism can hold together the American people ? Cer- 
tainly the Union is a rope of sand, unless it be cherished and 
consecrated in their hearts. But his sense of the inestima- 
ble worth of the Union has appeared so fully already, that 
it would be a waste of words to say more on the point 
here. For the same reason, it is needless to dwell upon his 
opinions respecting the importance of universal education, as 
indispensable to the perpetuity of our Republican Institu- 
tions. 

As to the actual working of the government, he saw one 
of the chief causes of alarm in the vast and corrupting 
influence of Executive Patronage. This tremendous power 
had come to be wielded exclusively as an instrument of party 
management and success. It had thus degraded the Execu- 
tive office, and infected with a deadly poison the whole poli- 
tics of the country. "In states," remarks Burke, "there 
are often some obscure and almost latent causes, things 
which appear at first view of little moment, on which a very 
great part of their prosperity or adversity may essentially 
depend." Or, to use Mr. P.'s own language : " It is from 
small and apparently insignificant attacks, that governments 
and constitutions fall. A leak, no larger than a spear head, 
will sink the most gallant ship that ever swam the ocean. 
A crevasse may be made, even by a reptile, which will let 
in the waters of the Mississippi, till whole counties are 
inundated." The history of Executive Patronage affords a 
strikinar illustration of these remarks. At first it was 
exercised with so much care and moderation that nobody 



EXECUTIVE PATRONAGE. 493 

discerned in it the germ of that anti-republican, despotic 
and ruthless thing, that 

Monstrum horrendum, ingens, informe, cui lumen ademptum, 

which it has now become. During the eight years of Wash- 
ington's administration, he removed only nine officers. The 
elder Adams dismissed ten during his Presidency. Mr. Jef- 
ferson, during his eight years, only removed forty-two — 
although a large portion of the officeholders were strongly 
opposed to his election. Mr. Madison, during his eight 
years, dismissed but five officers. Mr. Monroe, during his 
two terms, only nine. John Quincy Adams dismissed but 
two. General Jackson, during the first year of his Presi- 
dency, removed two hundred and thirty officers; in other 
words, he removed about three times as many in one year as 
all his predecessors had dismissed in forty. Before the close 
of his eight years, he had made a pretty " clean sweep" 
throughout the country. Gen. Jackson, therefore, may be 
said to have inaugurated the present system ; and he has 
been followed by all his successors. The effect upon the 
political morals of the people, and upon the character of the 
government, has been unspeakably debasing. The Presi- 
dent, instead of keeping himself aloof from the petty strife 
and intrigues of party, as befits the Chief Magistrate of a 
great nation, is little more than the autocratic dispenser of 
government " spoils." For months after his inauguration, 
his name is mixed up with all the ignoble office-seeking 
cliques of his party throughout the Union ; the telegraph 
is chiefly occupied in reporting what postmaster, or other 
insignificant subordinate, he has removed or appointed ; 
Washington City becomes infested with a huge army of 
office-seekers, flushed with the sense of their patriotic ser- 
vices, fawning or bullying to get their rewards, and actually 
imperilling the President's life by their importunities. It is 



494 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

a spectacle almost as pitiable and debasing as can be found 
in the history of Rome in her worst days. "What must be 
the tendency of the system but to deteriorate the manners, 
morals, and whole manhood of the nation I* 



* The subject of Executive Patronage attracted much attention during the Pre- 
sidency of John Quincy Adams. In 1826 an elaborate Report on the subject was 
l)resented to the Senate by a committee, of which Col. Benton was chairman. That 
model republican, Nathaniel Macon, of North Carolina, Mr. Van Buren, afterwards 
President, R. M. Johnson, of Kentucky, Mr. White, of Tennessee, and Mr. Hayne, 
of South Carolina, were among its members. Here follows an extract from this 
memorable report. It is truly prophetic : 

" With the ' Blue Book,' they will discover enough to show that the predictions 
of those who were not blind to the defects of the Constitution, are ready to be rea- 
lized ; that the power and influence of Federal patronage, contrary to the argu- 
ment in the ' Federalist,' is an overmatch for the power and influence of State 
patronage ; that its workings will contaminate the purity of all elections, and ena- 
ble the Federal Government, eventually, to govern throughout the States, aseflFec- 
tually as if they were so many provinces of one vast empire. 

" The whole of this great poTer will centre in the President. The King of Eng- 
land is the ' fountain of honor ,' the President of the United States is the source of 
patronage. He presides over the entire system of Federal appointments, jobs, and 
contracts. He has ' power'- over the 'support' of the individuals who administer 
the system. He makes and unmakes them. He chooses from the circle of his 
friends and supporters, and may dismiss them ; and, upon all the principles of hu- 
man actions, will dismiss them, as often as they disappoint his expectations. His 
spirit will animate their actions in all the elections to State and Federal offices. 
There may be exceptions ; but the truth of a general rule is proved by the excep- 
tion. The intended check and control of the Senate, without new constitutional or 
statutory provisions, will cease to operate. Patronage will penetrate this body, sub- 
due its capacity of resistance, chain it to the car of power, and enable the President 
to rule as easily, and much more securely with, than without the nominal check of 
the Senate. If the President was himself the officer of the people, elected by them, 
and responsible to them, there would be less danger from this concentration of all 
power in his hands ; but it is the business of statesmen to act upon things as they 
are, not as iney would wish them to be. We must then look forward to the time 
when the public revenue will be doubled ; when the civil and military officers of the 
Federal Government will be quadrupled ; when its influence over individuals will be 
multiplied to an indefinite extent; when the nomination by the President can carry 
any man through the Senate, and his recommendation can carry any m^easure 
through the two Houses of Congress ; when the principle of public action wiU be 
open and avowed ; the President wants my vote, and Ixcant his patronage ; I 
will tote as he wiiihes, and he will give me the office I wiftJi for. What will this 
be, but the government of one man ? and what is the government of one man, but 
a monarchy? Names are nothing. The nature of a thing is in its substance, and 
the name soon accommodates itself to the substance. The first Roman Emperor 



EXECUTIVE PATRONAGE. 495 

One effect of this enormous power of Executive Patron- 
age, as already intimated, is to stimulate and intensify all 
the bad propensities incident to party politics. It is enough 



was styled Emperor of the RepuUie, and the last French Emperor took the same 
title ; and their respective countries were just as essentially monarchical before, aa 
after the assumption of these titles. It cannot be denied or dissembled but that the ' 
Federal Government gravitates to the same point, and that the election of the 
Executive by the Legislature quickens the impulsion." 

The reader will also find some most impressive remarks on this subject in Mr. 
Calhoun's speeches. No one can read them without admiring their manly boldness, 
independence, and patriotic spirit ; all the more because Mr. Calhoun's practice 
corresponded with his theory. They deserve to be re-printed, in the form of tracts, 
and circulated broadcast among the people. It is a wonder, indeed, that this 
method of instructing the public mind on important questions of political morality 
has not been more generally used. I feel that I shall be doing a service to the 
young men of the country who may read this Memoir, by quoting some passages 
from Mr. Calhoun. Here is an extract from his speech on the bill to repeal the Four 
Years' Law, made in February, 1S35, in which he contends that the power of dis- 
missal is not lodged in the President, but is subject to be controlled and regulated 
by Congress : 

" The construction for which I contend," he remarks, " strikes at the root of that 
dangerous control which the President would have over all who hold office, if 
the power of appointment and removal without limitation or restriction were 
united in him. Let us not be deceived by names. The power in question is too 
great for the Chief Magistrate of a free state. It is in its nature an imperial power, 
and if he be permitted to exercise it, his authority must become as absolute as that 
of the autocrat of all the Russias. To give him the power to dismiss at his will and 
pleasure, without limitation or control, is to give him an absolute and unlimited 
eontrol over the subsistence of almost all who hold office under Government. Let 
him have the power, and the sixty tliousand who now hold employment under 
Government would become dependent upon him for the means of existence. Of 
that vast multitude, I may venture to assert that there are very few whose subsist- 
ence does not, more or less, depend upon their public employments. Who does not 
Bee that a power so unlimited and despotic over this great and powerful corps must 
tend to corrupt and debase those who compose it, and to convert them into the 
supple and willing instruments of him who wields it? And here let me remark," 
said Mr. C, " that I have been unfairly represented in reference to tliis point. I 
have been charged with asserting that the whole body of office-holders is corrupt, 
debased, and subservient; with what views, those who make the charge can best 
explain. I have made no such assertion, nor could it with truth be made. I know 
that there are many virtuous and high-minded citizens who hold public office ; but 
it is not, therefore, the less true that the tendency of the power of dismissal is such 
as I have attributed to it ; and that if the power be left unqualified, and the prac- 
' tice be continued as it has of late, the result must be the complete corruption and 
debasement of those in public employment. What," Mr. C. asked, "has been th« 
jvowerful cause that has wrought the wonderful changes which history teaches ui 



496 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

of itself to create a gang of demagogues in every city, and a 
tnot of them in every village of the land. The bane of free, 
popular governments has always been their tendency to 



have occun-ed at diflFerent periods in the character of nations ? What has bowed 
down that high, generous, and chivah-ous feeling — that independent and proud 
spirit which characterized all free states in rising from the barbarous to the civi- 
lized condition, and which finally converted their citizens into base sycophants and 
flatterers ? Lxider the operation of what cause did the proud and stubborn con- 
querors of the world, the haughty Romans, sink down to that low and servile 
debasement which followed the decay of the republic ? What but the mighty cause 
which I am considering; the power which one man exercised over the fortunes and 
subsistence, the honor and the standing of all those in ofiSce, or who aspire to pub- 
lic employment ? Man is naturally proud and independent ; and if he loses these 
noble qualities in the progress of civilization, it is because, by the concentration 
of power, he who controls the government becomes deified in the eyes of those who 
live or expect to live by his bounty. Instead of resting their hopes on a kind Pro- 
vidence and their own honest exertions, all who aspire are taught to believe that 
the most certain road to honor and fortune is servility and flattery. We already 
experience its corroding operation. With the growth of executive patronage and 
the control which the Executive has established over those in oflBce by the exercise 
of this tremendous power, we witness among ourselves the progress of this b»se and 
servile spirit, which already presents so striking a contrast between the former and 
present character of our people. 

" It is in vain to attempt to deny the charge. I have marked its progress in a 
thousand instances within the last few years. I have seen the spirit of independent 
men, holding public oflBce, sink under the dread of this fearful power ; too honest 
and too firm to become the instruments or flatterers of power, yet too prudent, with 
all the consequences before them, to whisper disapprobation of what in their hearts 
they condemn. Let the present state of things continue— let it be understood that 
none are to acquire the public honors or to obtain them but by flattery and base 
compliance, and in a few generations the American character will become utterly 
corrupt and debased." 

Again : 

" We have," said Mr. C, " lost all sensibility ; we have become callous and har- 
dened under the operation of these deleterious practices and principles which cha- 
racterize the times. What a few years since would have shocked and roused the 
whole community, is now scarcely perceived or ftlt. Then the dismissal of a few 
inconsiderable officers, on party grounds as was supposed, was followed by a gene- 
ral burst of indignation; but now the dismissal of thousands, when it is openly 
avowed that the public ofiices are the ' spoils of the victors,' produces scarcely a 
sensation. It passes as an ordinary event. The present state of the country," 
said Mr, C, " was then anticipated. It was foreseen, as far back as 1826, that the 
time would come when the income of the Government and the number of those in 
its employment would be doubled— and that the control of the President, with the 
power of dismissal, would become irresistible. All of which was urged as an induce- 
ment for reform at that early period ; and aa a reason why the administration then 



EXECUTIVE PATRONAGE. 497 

CDgeiidei' such political vermiu ; a race of men, who, having 
no principles, make it their business to play upon the igno- 
rance, passions, and prejudices of the people, that they may 



in power should be expelled, and those opposed to them should be elevated tx** the 
places. But now wlien this prophecy has been realized, we seem perfectly insei 
sible of the danger to which the liberty and institutions of the country are expose*. 
Among the symptoms of the times," said Mr. C, "which indicate a deep and gi-o« 
ing decay, I would place among the most striking, the difference in the conduct o 
those who seek public employment before and after their elevation. In the Ian 
guage of the indignant Roman, they solicit offices in one manner and use them ii 
another. And this remark was not more true of that degenerated state of the 
noblest of all the republics of antiquity, than it is of ours at the present time. It is 
not only," said Mr. C, " a symptom of decay, but it is also a powerful cause. 
"When it comes to be once understood that politics is a game ; that those who are 
engaged in it but act a part ; that they make this or that profession, not from honest 
conviction or an intent to fulfill them, but as the means of deluding the people, and 
through that delusion to acquire power, when such professions are to be entirely 
forgotten ;— the people will lose all confidence in public men ; all will be regarded as 
mere jugglers — the honest and the patriotic as well as the cunning and the profl- 
gate ; and the people will become indifferent and passive to the grossest abuses of 
power, on the ground that those whom they may elevate under whatever pledges, 
instead of reforming, will but imitate the example of those whom they have 
expelled." 
Again, in some remarks in the Senate, May 14th, 1846, he says : 
" To go back to the beginning ; — there was, originally, a controversy whether the 
removing power belonged to the President of the United States or not ; and, after a 
long discussion, it was decided to be incidental to the Executive — in my opinion, a 
most erroneous decision, and fraught with great mischief. During that discussion 
— if my memory serves me right — Mr. Madison expressed the opinion that the remo- 
val of a meritorious officer not guilty of any neglect of duty, by the Executive, 
would be an impeachable offence. Substantially, that was acted upon till a very 
late period; and the overthrow of that principle, to use the expression of the Sena- 
tor from North Carolina, has laid the foundation of the ' spoils system ;' for it was 
a much more easy thing, after the expiration of four years, to drop an officer and 
send another to his place, than to turn him out. From that, the principle has 
extended and extended till, literallj', our Government has become a government of 
spoils. Your Presidential elections are governed by it, and it has conducted this 
Government in the downward road to ruin. The evil tendency of this principle has 
been often described on the floor of Congress. It has come to this, that every four 
years there is a revolution of parties in the United States. You have an expendi- 
ture, annually, say of $25,000,000, and in t) e four years of |100,000,000. This is a 
vast sum in the hands of the Executive ; and, on the spoils principle, it becomes a 
great prize to be obtained at every Presidential election. Now, the officeholders 
have the greatest interest to maintain their position ; — and those who desire office, 
on the other hand, liave the strongest motives to struggle hard in getting a President, 
Thus the Presidential election becomes a conflict between these (wo parties; tho9« 



498 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 



*win their votes. But tlie whole system of Executive Patron- 
age is calculated to increase a huudred-fold these hypocriti- 
cal patriots and tail of the 7iation. 



out of office being the most numerous, prove the strongest, and the office expec- 
tants defeat the officeholders. A system of conflict is thus produced utterly destruc- 
tive of every sound political principle, and of all political integrity. We could not 
do a wiser thing than to put an end to it. The first step to cure the evil is to assume 
the power abandoned improperly. The power of removal is a congressional power, 
to be regulated by law. Not that Congress have the power, but they have the right 
to regulate it by law. This is not a new idea of mine. In 1S35 or 1836, — I think 
it was in 1S36, — I moved a committee to take into consideration the subject of Exe- 
cutive patronage. One of my recommendations was to put an end to this four years' 
law. If it be desirable to remove every four years, say so. If it be desirable that 
the accounts should be closed every four years, and the officer should be turned 
out, say so : and you will get to the commencement of the putting down of a system 
which, if you do not put down, it will put you down." 

Mr. Webster here rose, and expressed his concurrence with Mr. Calhoun in the 
view that the removing power does not belong, constitutionally, to the President, 
but should be regulated by Congress. Mr. Calhoun afterwards closed with the fol- 
lowing weighty sentences : 

"A large mass of society enter into politics as a mere mode of obtaining a 
livelihood. When I affirm that already as many persons live upon the expenditures 
of this Government, as the half of the great population engaged in the cultivation 
of the cotton lands, the extent of the evil may be imagined. The income of the 
Government is almost equal to half of all the income derived from cotton property. 
Now, we know what a large mass of our population is engaged in the cultivation of 
cotton ; — and yet, through the action of this Government, as many persons are 
living upon the public revenue. But this is not all. Put the half of the income pf^ 
the cotton property into a lottery, to be drawn every four years : so many men will 
go into that lottery in hopes of drawing a prize, that when the victory is achieved, 
not one in forty can be rewarded. What is the result? The thirty-nine disap- 
pointed, and who fought only for the ' spoils,' turn round in process of time — when 
political degeneracy takes place, as it will — to the other side, and seek the next 
turn of the wheel when another lottei-y is drawn. Thus they go on. Can any wise 
man — can any patriotic man — can any genuine friend of human liberty, look at such 
a spectacle without the most poignant regret? He must belittle informed, indeed, 
in politics who does not know all this ; and knowing all this, he will be asserting one 
of the most untrue and monstrous propositions on the face of God's earth, who 
says that this is a ' popular doctrine.' What! ' a popular doctrine ?' It is the very 
reverse. It is the doctrine to create a king, and to annihilate liberty. As for my- 
self, I have maintained on this subject an uniform position. When the act of 1820 
was passed, it passed through Congress without my knowledge. The moment I 
heard of its passage, I pronounced to a friend that that law was one of the most 
dangerous ever passed, and that it would work a great revolution. I have always 
stood upon that ground ; and yet I know that this position is not a popular position. 
But I speak the truth when the truth ought to be spoken. The Presidential elec 



THE DEMAGOGUE. 499 

No man iu the Union, probably, had studied demagoguism 
with a more observing eye, had a deeper horror of it, or was 
more in the habit of denouncing it in his public addresses, 
than Mr. Prentiss. I once read to him Coleridge's masterly 
portrait of the demagogue in the second Lay Sermon. He 
listened with rapt attention, and as the sketch proceeded, 
disclosing one feature after another, of the miserable impos- 
tor, as "a deceiver," "an incendiary," " a malignant," "a 
tyrant," " a hypocrite and a slanderer ;" then showing the 
way in which the press, tongue, and other means are subsi- 
dized by him for executing his villany, he pronounced the 
analysis perfect. It was the very same creature he had so 
often encountered in Mississippi — head and tail — loath- 
someness — poison-bag and rattle ; but, well as he knew the 
wretch, never, he said, could he have described it with such 
matchless, skill.* 

tion is no longer a struggle for great principles, but only a great struggle as to who 
shall have the spoils of office. Look at the machinery ! A convention nominates 
the President — in which, not unfrequently, many of the representatives of the States 
join in a general understanding to divide the offices among themselves and their 
friends. And thus they make a President who has no voice at all in the selection 
of officers ! These things are known ; and I say it is surprising that, being known, 
gentlemen who advocate the opposite doctrine assume to be democratic. No. The 
democratic doctrine is precisely the reverse of what they affect to teach. It goes 
against patronage and influence, and gives no more patronage than what the strict 
necessity of the case requires. Patronage wisely and judiciously dispensed on the 
part of the Executive, may have a salutary effect in giving concentration and 
strength to the Government; but this wholesale traffic in public offices for party 
purposes is wholly pernicious and destructive of popular rights. Properly applied 
the policy is admirable ; but as soon as the Government becomes the mere crea- 
tur ' of seekers of office, your free institutions are nearly at an end. In this mat- 
ter I have been uniform and sincere— whether right or wrong, time will disclose. 
But the evil has commenced. It is going on. It needs no prophet to foresee the end. 
I speak not in the language of prophecy; but who, judging from the past, can 
avoid the conviction that unless the proper remedy be applied, the overthrow of 
your political system is inevitable ?" 

* In this connection I cannot refrain from citing a remarkable passage from 
Aristotle, in which that profound observer gives the genesis of the demagogue. 
He is describing one of the spurious forms of democracy, and the extract will 
Bhow that the theory of government by the resolves of mass meetings, instead of 
law, is, by no means, a modern invention. 



500 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

Such are some of the views which, in conversation and in 
his pubhc addresses, Mr. Prentiss used to express respecting 
the nature and pecuUar perils of our political system. 



" "Erepov 6' elSog dTjuoKparlag, raXka //ev zlvai ravra^ Kvptov 6' elvai 
rh 'rrX^'&og koc firj rov vojuov. Tovto de yiverai, brav to. '4}7j<l)Lafj.aTa 
Kvpia y, d?i?M iir] 6 vojuog- avfijSalvei 6e tovto did. Tovg drjixayuyovg' tv 
[ilv yap Tolg Kara vofiov 6/]/uoKpaTov/j,h'aig ov ylvsTat drj/itayuybg, dX/l' 

01 jitTiTLGTOL TUV TToXlTibv eloLV £V TTpoeSpia' UTTOV 6' OL VOjUOC /J.?) eIuI 

Kvpiot, evTav-&a yivovTai drj/iayuyot. Movapxoc yap 6 drjfiog yiveTai 

cvv&ETog elg en tto?^1u)V o'l yap iro/Jlol Kvpioi elaiv, ovx wf EKacTog, 

aAka TTuvTeg. "Ofirjpog 6e noiav Aeyei ovk dya'&bv elvai 7ro7.VKOLpavir}V, 

TTOTepov TavTTjv, 1] oTav Trleiovg uatv oi dpxovTeg, ug eKaaTog, dStjlov. 

'O 6' ovv TOiovTog (^y/nog, are fiovapxog uv, ^7]Tei fiovapxdv, did to fir) 

upx^ty^cLi vKo vofiov, Kal yivETt-L deaiTOTCKog' cjgte o'l K6?MKeg tvTifioi. 

Kal Igtlv 6 TOiovTog Sy/iog dvdloyov tljv novapxt-Cjv Ty TvpavvlSt' Sib 

Kal TO r/-&og to avTo, Kal dix^o SeaTTOTLKa tljv jSeXTiSvuv. Kal Td 

'ipTj(l)laiuaTa, udirep eKei tu hinTdyfiaTa' Kai 6 drjiiayoybg koI 6 Kola^ ol 

avTol Kal dvdloyov Kal iidlioTa 6" sKaTEpnt laxvovaiv ol fiiv KolaKEg 

•napd Tvpdvvoig, ol Se drj/J-ayuyol Tolg dr^juotg Tolg TOLOVTOig. AItlol 

de eIcl tov Elvai ra ■^7](t)LG/J,aTa Kvpia, d?i?ui fifj Tovg vofiovg, ovTot, 

TcdvTa dvdyovTEg Elg Tbv drjfioV (TVfil3aiVEi yap avToig yivEG'&ai fieydXoig, 

did Tb Tbv fJ.EV dr/fiov Elvai Ktpiov, Tfjg Ss tov dyfiov do^rjg TOVTOVg. 

TVEi^ETai ydp Tb irlrj^og TovToig. 'Eti S^ ol Taig dpxalg kyKalovvTEg 

TOV 6T]ubv (paai Seiv KplvEiV 6 ds da/xsvcog dixETai tjjv irpoKlrjaiV uaTt 

KaTalvovTai rrdaai al dpxat. Evloyug 6^ uv So^eiev iKiTifj-dv 6 (^iddKUV 

T//V ToiavTTjv Elvai SrjiioKpaTiav, cv iroTiiTEiaV o^ov ydp /xr) vofioi 

dpXOVaiV, OVK EGTL -KoXiTEia." 

Politica, Lib. iv. chap. iv. 

The following is an English version slightly paraphrased : — 

" Another kind of democracy is where, other things being the same, the multi- 
tude, and not the law, bears sway. This comes to pass when, instead of the law, 
the mere resolves of the popular assembly are sovereign ; and this is the work of 
the demagogues ; for popular governments, in which the constitution and lawa 
are supreme, afford no place for demagogues ; but the best citizens are there in 
authority (literally, in the presidency). Where, however, the lawa are not sovereign, 
demagogues spring up. In such a government the people are a sort of many- 
headed monarch; for the many rule not as each, but as all {Fit enim princepa 
solus imperium oUinens {monnrcMim dicunt Grceci) populusunus exmidtis 
concretns et confiaius ; nam penes midios summa rei piilUca, potektas est non 
ut 8inffulos,sed ut omnes.) Whether Homer had in mind this kind of govern- 
ment, when he censures a plurality of rulers ; or whether he meant that, in which 
many individuals bear sway, is not clear. Now, such a people being, in truth, a 
monai-ch, will, of coui-se, play the king ; and inasmuch as it is controlled by no 



HIS PATRIOTIC HOPES. 60]. 

Bat deeply as he lamented the evils of the times, and 
much as he thought some features of our government were 
misunderstood, he was no prophet of evil. His political 
disappointments never made him despair of the Republic. 
On the contrary, he indulged in the grandest prophecies 
respecting its coming glories. It was this intense devotion 
to his country, and these patriotic hopes, which gave such a 
charm often to his political conversation.* 

While he had little confidence in mere politicians, he 
cherished a deep faith in the substantial intelligence, virtue, 
and good sense of the real American people. He believed 
they would not prove recreant to the high trust committed 



law, readily becomes despotic. Hence, flatterers are in honor. A democracy of 
this description bears the same analogy to a popular government, based upon the 
supremacy of law, that a tyranny bears to the legitimate forms of monarchy. In 
both the aniimis, or moral character, is the same ; both exercise despotism over 
the better class of citizens ; and the resolves of mass meetings are in the one, what 
edicts and decrees are in the other. The demagogue, too, and the flatterer of the 
tyrant, bear the closest analogy, they are, indeed, at heart, the same ; and these 
have the principal power ; each in their respective forms of government, court 
favorites with the absolute monarch, and demagogues with a people such as I have 
described. The demagogues are, in fact, the guilty authors of this degeneracy of 
popular government, by referring everything to the mere pleasure of the people, 
without respect to law or right. Thus they aggrandize themselves, and become 
mighty; by ruling the popular opinion, they rule the State ; for the multitude obeys 
them ! If they wish to overthrow an upright magistrate, they accuse him not 
before the law, Dut before the people, which, they say, ought to be his judge ; the 
people, well pleased, entertain the wrongful proposal, and thus all just authority is 
dissolved ! 

" He, who should blame us for calling such a democracy a State, would, cer- 
tainly, not censure without good reason ; for where laws do not govern^ there i» 
no State.'''' 

* In summing up Mr. Prentiss's public life, I should say that his absorbing sen- 
timent was patriotism. The pleasantest reminiscences I have of him are, when 
circumstances have thrown me in his company, in some retired place, and I have 
listened to his hopes and aspirations for the prosperity of his native land. With 
the talent of an improvisatore, he drew more vivid pictures of the glory that 
awaited its destiny in the Future, than ever did an Italian child of song call up 
when speaking of the Past. Those great hopes of his, so worthy of a true Ameri- 
can heart, so inspiringly expressed, now linger in my memory, as the sweet out- 
pourings of a voice from the "spirit- world." — Thorpe's Reminiscence*. 



502 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

to tliem by Providence ; that they would still carry for- 
ward the work begun by their worthy sires, and transmit to 
posterity, unimpaired, our noble heritage of Law, Liberty, 
Union, and Social Order, His sentiments on this point 
cannot be more happily expressed, or this chapter better 
concluded, than by citing the well-known lines of another 
gifted son of Portland : 

Thou, too, sail on, ship of state I 

Sail on, Union, strong and great ! 

Humanity with all its tears. 

With all the liop^s of future years, 

Is hanging breathless on thy fate ! 

We know what master laid thy keel, 

What workmen wrought thy ribs of steel, 

Wlio made each mast, each sail, each rope, 

What anvils rang, what hammers beat. 

In what a forge, and what a heat, ' 

Were shaped the anchors of thy hope ! * 

Fear not each sudden sound and s'riock. i, 

'Tis of the wave and not the rock ; '• 

'Tis but the flapping of the sail. 

And not a rent made by the gale ! 

In spite of rock and tempest roar. 

In spite of false lights on the shore, 

Sail on, nor fear to breast the sea ! ]\ 

Onr hearts, our hopes, are all with thee : 

Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears. 

Our faith triumphant o'er our fears, 

Are all with thee— are all with thee ! 



PERSONAL TRAITS. 503 



CHAPTER XXYII. 

Peroonal Traits — His Disregard of Money — His Generosity — His Interest in Young 
Men and Kindness to them — Character of his Friendships — Sympathy with the 
Poor, the Sicli, and Afllicted— Letters addressed to him by Strangers— His 
Domestic Life. 

If the preceding pages have not quite failed of their end, 
the general features of the life and character of the subject 
of this memoir need no further elucidation. That he was a 
true man — brave, generous, and high-minded ; that he was 
a sincere lover of his country, a most able lawyer, and an 
orator of rare power ; that he was a model of filial and 
domestic piety — if all this is not evident already, the 
attempt to make it so were, surely, a vain task. But no 
general impression respecting S. S. Prentiss could be exactly 
just ; for everything about him was specific and sui generis 
His talents, his virtues, his very faults, had upon them his 
individual stamp ; if one did not know them as they 
appeared in him, one did not really know them. This is, 
doubtless, true of every man of great and original charac- 
ter ; nature never makes two such men precisely alike ; 
every genuine manifestation of their peculiar life, whether 
intellectual or practical, will difi'er somewhat from all simi- 
lar manifestations. Shakespeare's unique genius is visible 
in almost every line of his immortal dramas ; and how 
intense is the individuality which shines through every verse 
of Milton ? Who would ever mistake a speech of Webster 
for one of Clay, although on the same subject, and express- 



504 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

ing the same sentiments ? And even in the highest forms 
of spiritual life, we jEind this endless diversity in unity ; the 
most saiutly virtues unfolding with varied beauty in patri- 
arch, evangelist, and apostle. 

It will be the aim of this chapter to gather up a few scat- 
tered threads of Mr. Prentiss' life, and work them into the 
tissue of our narrative. While illustrating his disregard 
of money, his interest in young men, just commencing pro- 
fessional life, or struggling against adverse fortune, the 
character of his friendships, his sympathy with the poor, 
the sick, and afflicted, and other personal traits, they will 
serve, also, it is hoped, to render more vivid and distinct 
the total impression of his character : 

If he was not covetous of place or rank (writes Judge Wil- 
kinson), he Avas even less so of riches. All who knew him, 
knew and said, that money he did not know the uses of. 
True, he knew that its commonest function was to tuy : but 
how much was to be given for anything, he never stopped to 
calculate. In the summer of 1842 he visited Yazoo city, pas- 
sing the time of his stay at my house. He had, at a previous 
court, recovered a judgment against the Corporation of the city 
for two thousand and five hundred dollars. "I have come," ho 
said, "to ask you to tell me who of your citizens will buy this 
judgment of mine against the town. The Corporation cannot 
pay it just now, and I must have one thousand dollars. I do 
not care for more. Will you offer it for that?" This I dechned 
doing, and remoDr';rated with him against such a course as cul- 
pable prodigality, assuring him that the debt was perfectly 
secure, and that the judgment would be paid, when the execu- 
tion was returnable — in about six months. "No," said he, 
" I must have one thousand dollars. I would rather have that 
sum now than five thousand at the end of six months. I have a 
young brother in Germany, a student of divinity; he wants this 
amount, he must have it and shall." He sold the judgment a 
few days afterwards for about one-half its value. 



PERSONAL TRAITS. 505 

The following is an extract from a letter, addressed to 
me, in Germany, in the spring of 1840. The writer of it 
has since become well known in the literary world : 

I am, as my date has informed yon, in the city of Yickshnrg ; 
what is more, I am a dweller in this place, and what will surprise 
you still more, I am in the law oflSce of your distinguished 
brother, and a member of the bar of Mississippi! And now, 
"season your admiration for awhile," as your favorite Hamlet 
hath it, while I discourse to you in what wise these things have 
come to pass. The last time we were together, was in October 
of- '38, in the city of New York, on the morning I left for the 
West. * * * * In December last, I was advised to pass 
the winter in the South for my health. I accordingly dropped 
a few lines to your brother, introducing myself to him as a 
friend of yours, and desiring some information relative to the 
practice of law in this State. Much to my surprise and gratifi- 
cation, your brother devoted a whole sheet in reply to me, and 
its contents were kind and encouraging ; he referred to you, and 
proffered me most generously his friendship and aid, should I 
visit Mississippi. At about this time some inducements wero 
offered me to go to Louisiana ; and I accordingly replied to your 
brother, acknowledging his kindness, but declining a visit to 
Vicksburg for sundry prudential reasons more interesting to 
myself than to any one else, to wit: I had no library, but little 
familiarity with my profession, and still less was I burdened 
with pecuniary resources. To this letter your brother, to my 
great surprise, immediately replied, proffering me the use of his 
oflBce and library ; and, moreover, any pecuniary aid \vhich my 
occasions might require, until I had established myself in my 
profession, and cou]<l repay his liberality. I need hardly repeat, 
that such a proposal from one, who was then a perfect stranger 
to me, caused me no little astonishment, unused as I had ever 
been to generosity of the kind. I determined, at once, to visit 
your brother, and if, upon acquaintance with me personally, he 
thought proper to renew liis proposal, to accept it on sundry 
considerations. I need not tell you that I lihe your brother : I 
VOL ir. 22 



506 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

cannot tell you hoio much I like him. I am as mucli charmed 
by his fervid, generons, frank disposition as I am dazzled by his 
surpassing abilities. 

Another old friend, now a distinguished lawyer in the 
Southwest, writes in 1851 : 

I had heard through a paragraph in a New Orleans paper, 
of your intention ; and had I not received your letter, should 
have written to you, offering my aid in any way in your 
behalf ; indeed, though myself quite ill when the distressing 
news of your brother's death shocked us, my first impulse 
was to write at once to you, and express as strongly as feeble 
words could, how much I sympathized with your greater 
grief, and how heavy-hearted we all felt at what was not alone 
our individual, but a national bereavement. Yet what could 1 
say that would not have been cold compared with what I 
wanted to say, and that would not have appeared like intruding 
upon a grief so solemn and deep as yours ? I always thought, and 
to the last, even when life seemed to all, manifestly waning, 
that your brother was destined to great things in this life, and 
would achieve them. I looked upon him as an intellectual 
Saul among men ; superior in native endowment to any one 
whom I had ever personally met ; with an originality, power, 
and depth of thought entirely peculiar to him. His intellect 
did not seem of the same sort with ordinary men's. I mean, it 
did not appear like the usual faculties of men highly developed 
or possessed in an extraordinary degree, but it always seemed 
to me to be of different material ; and I could never think or 
feel that his star was to set without shedding its light not only 
over the present living world, but also into the distant and dark 
future, instructing and delighting people yet unborn. And when 
his death was too certainly announced, I had the feeling, like 
your own, as though I had lost something of my own indi- 
viduality ; some part of myself torn away ; not to be replaced. 
But I will not indulge this train of thought or feeling. It is 
not what you ask for. I proceed, therefore, to give you a few 
anecdotes * » * 



HIS DISREGARD OF MONEY. 6CH 

Just before your brother went to Congress, Gen, came 

into the office, and told him he should want the use of his name 
while he would be at "Wasliington, in the settlement of his 

(Gen. 's) affiiirs, but would not use it beyond thirty thoiL- 

sand dollars. Your brother took some blank sheets of paper, 
wrote his name across them several times, and handed them 

to Gen. . Whether the latter ever used them, I do not 

know. I afterwards spoke of the occurrence to your brother, 
and of the great risk he run, if the paper should be misused or 
lost. In reply he said, he had the most unbounded confidence 

in , and besides, if he knew it would be used to double tho 

extent proposed, it would make no difference : Gen. had 

teen hind to him., when he first came to the State., and he 
could 71 ever forget it. 

To him money had, at this time, absolutely no value; it 
slipped through his fingers like water ; it seemed to me as if the 
idea that he should ever need it for any purpose of life, never 
occurred to him. During this period, while riding one day, he 
met a little boy weei)ing. He asked him his name. "Andrew 
Jackson," said the lad, with a new burst of tears; "Poor fel- 
low!" said your brother, handing him a gold eagle of the 
Jackson stamp, " poor fellow, no wonder he cries, afflicted with 
such a name!" Eemember this was in 1836, when Jackson was 
an abomination to the Whigs. 

When I came to Mississippi, young and inexperienced, and 
with nothing to commend me to his kindness or regard, he 
lavished favors upon me which were the beginning of my 
prosperity and fortune. He gave me the privilege, free of 
cost, to use his office ; he allowed me the amplest use of his 
then extensive law library ; he threw in my way all the business 
he could command ; introduced and recommended clients to me ; 
left his whole unfinished law business in my hands for settle- 
ment and adjustment ; showed me how to bring the first suit I 
ever brought ; and at all times, in all ways, freely gave me his 
personal aid and legal advice and assistance without ever an 
expression of impatience or dissatisfaction, or making me feel 
in the slightest degree, that I was trespassing on his time oi 



508 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

attention. This to me, a loy of nineteen, was a tower of 
strength. It gave the people confidence in me, which, to this 
da3% I have not lost, and it laid for me broadly and strongly a 
deep foundation for after success, on which I have built what I 
have built. You yourself must remember how, when in the 
winter of 1886-7, you thought of going to Cuba, and wanted me 
to go, your brother offered me five hundred dollars and my 
expenses to accompany you ; and with what familiarity, freedom, 
and unbounded kindness he gave me the benefit of his counsel, 
professional reputation, and position. I must not omit to men- 
tion one other proof of his liberality. In October, 1837, when 
lie was about to start for Congress, I 'told him I might, during 
his absence, need the use of Ms name in buying a residence for 
myself (for I expected to and did get married the next month). 
He sat down, and gave me his letter of credit for ten thousand 
dollars, then worth so much money. I never used it, and have it to J| 
this day ; but it was none the less noble and kind in him. These 
are things I can never forget, and though I did all in my power 
to be of service to him and was of great service to him, he 
never knew the intensity of interest with which I watched his 
progress ; the delight I experienced when success smiled on his 
efforts ; or the despair I felt when darkness and destruction 
fell upon his prospects. 

While deluded by the fictitious value of property here into the 
notion that he was immensely rich (for it was soon proved to 
be a delusion, and soon dispelled by the total prostration of 
business and banks, the fall in real estate, and the involve- 
ment in litigation of " the Commons^'* in front of the city, on 
which he had already expended enormous sums — one hundred 
and fifty thousand dollars at least — and which was all, with the 
improvements, taken out of his possession), during this period he 
lavished his money and credit with a boundless and, in truth, 
reckless hand. Ruin, long resisted and struggled against, at 
length came upon him ; yet, in the midst of his difficulties, and 
I record it as a fact that I shall ever feel grateful to him for, 
i\nd which I have often since thought proved the innate goodness 
and considerateiiess of his nature, he never sought, nor in any 



/ 



HIS DISREGARD OF MONEY. 509 

the slightest degree hinted at getting the aid of my name^ then 
worth something, to procure indulgence from his creditors, and 
that time^ which he verily believed would bring relief to big 
embarrassments. He knew a word of his would involve me 
and mine with his affairs; and he never spoke it. 

It would be an injustice to his memory not to state, what can 
be well authenticated, that up to the period, when he thought 
himself immensely wealthy, he was most scrupulously and 
minutely exact in all that related to his pecuniary obligations ; 
never contracting a debt without reluctance, or failing to meet 
it at any sacrifice. And in the later years of his life, while 
overburdened by a load of old debts, a similar carefulness in 
contracting new ones, and in paying them when incurred, 
began to mark him. He kept a book in which were registered 
these new debts; and paid them as soon as possible. 

It were easy to multiply anecdotes like the above, until 
the reader's very credulity would be tasked to believe them. 
It would require a little volume to mention in detail the 
instances of his princely generosity, his prodigal expendi- 
tures and the almost insane good nature with which he 
allowed his credit * and his money to be coaxed away. That 
in this last matter there was moral weakness as well as con- 
tempt of gold, it were folly to deny. Some, who by their 
petty arts and flatteries, obtained thousands of his money, 
and tens of thousands in the use of his name, were selfish 

* I believe I wrote you, in the summer, of my own involvements and of the 
almost absolute impossibility of raising money in Mississippi. I have become 
myself deeply embarrassed in security debts, and have had to strain every nerve to 
prevent the utter sacrifice of all my most valuable property. It seems to me that 
every friend, for whom I endorsed, has failed, and thrown the burden on my 
shoulders. I shall have to pay, and have paid, between fifty and one hundred 
thousand dollars. What I have not paid I have had to mortgage property for, 
and thug place it beyond my control. 'Still, if I am not much disappointed, I 
think I shall be able to let you have a couple of thousand dollars in the winter, or 
early in the spring. You may rest assured that no effort of mine shall be wanting 
to assist you to the extent of my power. Where I cannot aid you, I can, at least, 
sympathize with you. * * But it is useless to complain of the past; the future I 
shall use more Judiciously. — Leiter to his Eldest Brother, January 4, 1S41. 



510 ilEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

parasites ; drawn to him, that, like vampires, they might, aa 
indeed they did, suck his life's blood. When the evil day 
came upon him, their golden promises and admiration melted 
into thin air — they turned and fled. His real friends were 
well aware of his infirmity and of the peril to which it was 
exposing him ; but he himself was blind, until sharp expe- 
rience tore away the delusion. 

Ko bitter recollections, however, of past ingratitude or 
imposition, ever had power to chill the generous impulses of 
his nature, or to shut his hand, when one whom he had 
regarded as a friend, asked him to open it. A proof of this, 
at once characteristic and painful, occurred only a short 
time before his death. During his last visit North, in the 
summer of 1849, he left his family at Newburyport, and 
made a flying trip to Kew York. At the Astor House he 
fell in with an old acquaintance, well known in the South- 
west, who, for some cause or other, had fallen short in funds, 
then indispensable "to him. He appealed to Mr. Prentiss for 
relief ; solemnly promising in word and by writing, that the 
loan should be promptly returned on the receipt of money 
that would be due him from the Government, and certainly 
paid in a few months. His appeal was successful, and put 
into his hands the very funds which were to take Mr. P. and 
his family home to New Orleans. The voyage was actually 
made with borrowed money. He could conceal nothing 
from those he truly loved, and one of his first acts, on reach- 
ing Newburyport, was to confess what he had done. He 
seemed ashamed and mortified at his own weakness ; " But 

what could I do ?" he exclaimed, appealingly, " was an 

old friend, and, poor fellow ! • he threatened to blow his 
brains out if I did not let him have the money !" * 

* This threat was, probably, sincere ; for the unhappy man has since destroyed 
himself. In a letter, acknowledging Mr. P.'s kindness, he Tritea : " I do not gene- 
rally regard v^ry considerably a loan I make or receive. But never before ha4 



HIS KINDNESS TO YOUNG MEN. 511 

His kindness to young men just entering upon profes- 
sional life, has already been illustrated. An instance of his 
kindness to young men of worth, struggling against adverse 
fortune, and of their feelings towards him, shall now be 
given. It is but one of scores that might be related, 
each of which should be no less beautiful and charac- 
teristic : — 

It was with no ordinary feelings (writes an old friend in the 
Southwest, a man of varied erudition), that I received your let- 
ter. How many reminiscences were awakened by it of dear 
old Gorham, of Alma Mater, and of liim^ who was the principal 
subject of your communication ! Of him what can I say, but 
that I revered him? Others admired him, were astonished at 
him ; so was I, but there are other feelings mingling with my 
recollections of him, which can yield, indeed, in intensity, to 
those of his own kindred, but to no others. Since I heard the 
melancholy tidings of his untimely departure (and had he lived 
to a ripe old age, it never could have seemed to me that he had 
lived long enougli), it has appeared to me that a part of the 
world is gone. Surely, no one has lived in this country, who, 
mingling so little with the affairs of the nation, has stamped his 
memory so deeply on the public mind. Sitch a volume as you 
contemplate, however successful, could never contain a tithe of 
the eulogium which rises from the heart to the lips everywhere 
in the Southwest, whenever the name of Peentiss is men- 
tioned. 

I do not really believe I could furnish you many anecdotes of 
your brother which you have not already heard. Indeed, I have 
heard many which I considered of doubtful authenticity, for he 
is a traditional character all over Mississippi, their Cid, their 



my recklessness involved me to an extent where my pride was threatened with so 
severe a blow. Consequently, for extricating me from this press, I thank you 
more deeply than the amount of the loan would ordinarily warrant." A few 
weeks later he writes : " I am oflf for sea to-day, and wish to send you a word of 
greeting. * * I write to say a word about the loan you made me. * * And 
now farewell! In the vicissitudes of life, whatever maybe your fate, you will 
bear along with you my warmest wishes for your prosperity and advanctment." , 



512 



MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 



"Wallace, their Cceur do Lion, and all the old stories are wrought 
over again and annexed to his name. I saw much less of him 
than yon suppose, for in the fall of 1837 I left Yicksburg, and I 
never met him but two or three times afterwards. The last 
time was in the spring of 1838, soon after which I fell back upon 
my old drudgery of teaching, and have been buried almost ever 
since. The tenor of your letter, however, recalled to my 
memory the last letter I ever received from him — and I enclose 
a complete copy of it. I would send you the original, but it is 
too precious a relic. Let me explain the circumstances which 
gave rise to it. In the improvidence of boyhood, I had con- 
strued more literally tlian was exactly proper, the kind offer he 
had made to me of assistance ; further experience in the world 
had opened my eyes to my error, and I also felt mortified at the 
reflection that I had done nothing worthy of a protege of his. 
I felt unwilling that he should be reminded of my existence, 
until I had, by my unaided efforts, become able to repay him 
what I owed him. At the time I addressed him the letter 
which brought this reply, I was, or imagined myself, in a condi- 
tion to liquidate the claim, of the precise amount of which I 
was ignorant, and wrote him accordingly, at the same time, by 
way of apology for my conduct, frankly confessing the motives. 
His answer you have here before you. 

The kind, affectionate tone of his letter requires no comment, 
and its length, upwards of two pages, would never be regarded 
by any, who knew the utter sincerity of the writer, as merely 
an elaborate compliment. Another thing is observable in the 
original, showing how wholly unfounded was the vulgar notion 
(but vulgar minds can never understand such a man), that all 
he said or did was the result of sudden impulse. There are 
several erasures for the purpose of substituting a more appro- 
priate word, a thing not to be wondered at in a letter addressed 
to a distinguished personage, but not to have been expected in a 
letter to an obscure boy, if, as many s:ippose, he was in the habit 
of thinking and speaking at random, and if all his splendid 
strokes were but so many fortunate hits. This may seem to be 
dealing in minute things, but it was from minute fragments that 
a Cuvier reconstructed the giants of the Pieadamite world. 



PERSONAL TRAITS. 513 

The letter referred to is as follows : — 

ViCKSBUBG, February y 25, 1841. 
Mt Deab Sie: 

On my return yesterday from Natchez, I received 
yours of the 7th inst., and was both gratified and pained at its 
contents ; gratified to hear from you, to learn the place of yonr 
residence (of which I was entirely ignorant), and to learn also 
that your talents and honorable enterprise were not entirely 
without reward, though an inadequate one. But I was pained 
at the reason of your long silence — at the knowledge that you 
had suffered the trifling assistance, which it afforded me plea- 
sure to render you, to weigh u])on your mind, or cause you one 
moment of disquietude. Why, if there was any obligation, it 
was on my side. I owed a hundred times more to the son of 
your father, than the little service which I have been able to 
extend to you. You are wholly mistaken if you suppose that 
any unkind or unfavorable thought, in relation to you, ever 
crossed my mind. On the contrary, I have often wished to see 
you, and have made repeated and vain inquiries after you, for 
the purpose of acting towards you as I would towards my own 
brother. For more than two years I have lost trace of you, 
and supposed you had left the State. It would have afforded me 
sincere pleasure at any portion of that period, as it now would, 
and always will, to extend to you the hand of a friend. 

4: 4: 9K Hi % 

As for the trifling account between us in relation to pecu- 
niary matters, I have never thought of it, and know not how it 
stands. You shall not appropriate any of your hard-earned 
means to that object. If you ever have more money than you 
have use for, look about for some young man, with nothing but 
his education and his honest enterprise to commence the world 
with, and if you owe me anything, pay it to him, and, as we 

lawyers say, this shall be a receipt in full. Come, come, R , 

pluck up spirits; this w^orld has much in store for you. You 
have eaten the bitter fruit first ; the sweet mur^t follow. It is 
better so than to have the order reversed. When you can get 

VOL. IL 22* 



514 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

sufficient leisure, come down to Vicksburg and see me. I shal\ 
be gratified to see yon, and if I can at any time, in any way, 
serve you, I trust you will not hesitate to command me. 

Sincerely and truly your friend, 

S. S. Peentiso. 

P. S. Let me hear from you whenever your leisure and 
inclination will permit. 

It is not surprising that such a man should have been 
greatly admired by his young countrymen, or that the nar- 
rower circle of them, who enjoyed his personal acquaintance 
and regard, or had been the recipients of his kindness, should 
have felt towards him a sentiment of enthusiastic love and 
devotion. Among his papers are letters from nearly every 
College in the United States, informing him of his election 
to honorary membership in the various literary or debating 
soaieties, connected with such institutions. 

There was in all his genuine friendships a wonderful 
strength and nobleness of feeling. He adhered to them with 
unswerving fidelity, and could never be brought to acknow- 
ledge a fault in any one he loved. Even the deepest politi- 
cal prejudice melted away in the ardor of his personal 
attachments. Few things ever called forth from him more 
bitter denunciation than what he regarded as the treachery 
of Mr. Tyler ; he exhausted the stores of his wit and sarcasm 
in philippics against that gentleman's course ; but when the 
adhesion to Mr. Tyler of one of his intimate friends, a pro- 
minent member of the Whig party,* was the matter of dis- 
course, his lips were sealed in silence, or he quickly changed 
the subject. 

Indeed (writes Judge "Wilkinson), it was scarcely possible to 
* Mr. Wise, now Governor elect of Virginia. 



CHARACTER OF HIS FRIENDSHIPS. 515 

shake the loyalty of his friendship, when once formed ; and I 
never knew of his receiving the least requital for service ren- 
dered to a friend. Ju^t before he removed to llTew Orleans, I 
Bent him the record of a law suit, in which I was personally inte- 
rested, and by which I had recovered a considerable sum. I 
wished him to argue the cause in the appellate court (my adver- 
sary having appealed from the decision of the court below), and 
I took this opportunity of offering him, in a manner which I 
thought would be the most indirect and delicate, pecuniary com- 
pensation for service he had rendered me on a far more impor- 
tant occasion. I requested the gentleman by whom I sent the 
record (Mr. W. P. Miles) to say to Mr. P., that if the judgment 
of the court below was sustained, he must divide the amount 
with me equally. " Tell him,*' said your brother, " that I will 
oblige him in any way I can, but upon this condition, that he 
never again offers me compensation for what I may have done, 
or may hereafter do for him." 

His friendship bad, indeed, a sort of ideal life. Like the 
plighted love of woman, it clung to its chosen objects, and 
cast over them the mantle of charity, even when they had 
proved themselves most unworthy. Nor did it deem itself 
relieved from its grateful offices by the intervention of death. 
Among his papers is a package of letters, addressed to him 
from a distant State by the grandfather and guardian of 
three little orphans, interspersed with letters breathing an 
almost filial affection, from the children themselves. This 
correspondence begins in 1838, and ends with a most touch- 
ing, manly letter, written by the eldest of the three, a 
spirited boy, only a few weeks before his benefactor's death. 
It is endorsed with the name— not of the lad, but of his 
deceased father— and marked distinctly, though by a hand 
just stiffening in death, " to be answered." That father was 
an old and dear friend. Upon his decease, in the prime of 
manhood, Mr. Prentiss made over in trust, for the benefit 



616 



MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 



of bis three little orphans, a portion of his Yicksbnrg pro- 
perty, the annual income of which, he believed, would be 
amply sufficient for their education. In this he was disap- 
pointed ; the property soon became involved in litigation, 
and was finally lost. But that did not, in his view, cancel 
the debt of friendship ; he visited the children in their dis- 
tant home, wrote to them, and sent money to defray the 
expenses of their schooling. Endorsed on letter after letter 
from their grandfather, received during those dreadful years 
of pecuniary famine in the Southwest, between 1839 and 
1844, are the words, "acknowledging the receipt of two 
hundred dollars," or the words, " answered, enclosing two 
hundred dollars." The old man had written, in 1838, 
(though with no design of eliciting it from him), that " if 
ne could get one or two hundred dollars for a year or two, 
with what he could do himself, he would be able to give 
the children a plain education." Mr. P. replied by enclosing 
the larger sum, and intimating that he would continue to 
do it annually. But he little dreamed what, in a couple of 
years, would be his own pecuniary state, or that of the 
times. In Mississippi, in 1841-3, two hundred dollars of 
good money was probably harder to raise and actually 
worth more than a thousand now.* 

If it were proper to publish this correspondence, it would 
disclose delicate traits of nobleness in him to whom it was 



* A single extract from a letter, written about the same time with one enclosing 
two hundi-ed dollars to these orphans, furnishes the best comment upon his genero- 
sity: " There is no money in Mississippi. The prospect is more gloomy than ever," 
and Heaven only knows what is to be the result. To raise money by the sale of pro- 
perty, of whatever kind, is utterly iTtipractiedble. You can have no conception 
of the desperate condition of aflfairs here. I look forward to the coming summer 
with g]-eat apprehension as to obtaining money enough to pay ordinary expenses." 
Similar extracts might be given from other letters, dated near the time of the remit* 
tances. 



HIS KINDNESS TO THE DISTRESSED 51 1 

addressed, whicli baffle mere description. In one of the let- 
ters he is assured that there was no need of his apohgizing 
for sending United States paper, then only a shade inferior 
to gold. In other letters, the old man, who had a large 
family of his own and was hard pressed by toil and debt, 
reminds him somewhat bluntly of his generous promise to 
aid in educating the children, and then, as if conscious that 
he too might be toiling with debt, seems to struggle with 
the feeling that, perhaps, it was wrong to write at all. 

The letters of the orphans to " dear Mr, Prentiss," are 
sweet, artless effusions of childhood. The following is a 
specimen : 

, 3fa7-ch 30, 1S41. , 

Deae Me. Peentiss : — 

I am very glad that you are coming to see us. "We 
want to see you very much. I hope you will come in June. 
Sarah is studying geography and spelling; she is learning very 
fast. Felix studies geography, history, and spelling. I am 
learning geography and history, lexicon and grammar. Felix is 
writing to grandma', and says his next shall be to you. He 
caught cold and it settled in his ears. He is head in his class. 
Sarah is trying to make letters on the slate, so as to write to 
you. She staid head in her class five weeks ; she was youngest 
of them all. Our teacher is going away in May ; she gave me a 
seal with my name on it ; she is going to give the one with 
most perfect lessons, a silver pencil. I am trying to get it. I 
hke to learn history very much. I wish when you go to N. you 
would try to get me some of my father's hair ; I would like to 
have some to put in a breastpin. 

Sarah and Felix send their love to you, in which they are 

joined by 

Your affectionate friend, 

Eliza . 

A record of his impromptu kindnesses to persons in distress, 
to old friends, or those whom he had known in better days, 



518 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

would be like the tale of a Thousand and One Nights, If 
all the money dispensed by him in this way were brought 
together, it would constitute no small fortune. A single 
instance must suffice : 

1 once witnessed (writes Col. Peyton) a touching incident 
which revived in his memory a recollection of the early days he 
spent at Natchez. We were Avalking arm in arm along Gravier 
street, in New Orleans, a short time before he removed his resi-. 
dence from Vicksburg to that city, when a man in rags crossed 
the street and stopped in front, as if he would ask charity of one 
of us. Perceiving that he was not recognized, he said, "I see 
that you do not recollect me 1" announcing, at the same time, 
bis name to Mr. Peentiss. Your brother, evidently much 
affected, grasped his hand with the utmost cordiality, and apolo- 
gized for not knowing him. Poor fellow ! his own mother would 
not, in all probability, have been able to do so, such was his 
bloated and fallen condition. I walked on to the corner, where 
I awaited Mr. Prentiss, and saw him, with his pocket-book out, 
handiog bank bills to the beggar. When he joined me, his eye 
moistened and his lip quivered, as he alluded to the former cir- 
cumstances of this man, who was a merchant in good standing 
at Natchez, and had been kind and attentive to him on his 
arrival there, but being unfortunate in business, had become 
intemperate and thrown himself away.* 



* " Of his kindness to the unfortunate — particularly to the widow and the orphan 
— you can never say enough. I have been so long accustomed to Ma generosity, 
that I am filled with wonder when I meet with mean or selfish conduct. How often 
has he come home and told me that he had given away his last dollar to some one in 
distress. Any poor man about here, who knew him, could tell you as to that. He 
was often imposed upon, but it never checked his charity. He was always ready 
to give, and no one in trouble ever resorted to him without being relieved and helped 
on his way. While he was at Vicksburg, applications were constantly made to him 
by persons in distress, who were passing up or down the river, to lend them money ; 
and he has often, to my knowledge, borrowed it for the purpose, and so involved 
himself ; for I never knew of but one stranger, who thus obtained from him a pecu- 
niary loan, to repay it. I remember well the astonishment he expressed on receiv* 
ing a letter with the money enclosed." — £^traGt of a letter, dated Bellevue, neaf 
N. O., Feb. ISth, 1854. 



PERSONAL TRAITS. 519 

His fearless and generous heart found a natural pleasure 
in ministering to the sick, especially in times of raging pesti- 
lence. Cholera, yellow fever, or small-pox, had for him no 
terrors, and only served to develop in greater beauty his 
utter self-forgetfulness. How eagerly would he hasten to 
the bedside of a friend, smitten by one of these dreadful 
maladies, and watch by him day and night, taking him, 
meanwhile, if possible, under his own roof ! How he would 
soothe and comfort the poor sufferer by his manly sympa- 
thies, and his hopeful, cheery words ! To see his face in a 
sick room was like a sudden burst of sunshine on a dark 
day.* 

These are, it is true, but the common charities of life, 
especially in the Southwest, where epidemics are a school of 
unselfish, humane discipline ; and yet it is none the less grate- 
ful to witness them adorning the character of one we love. 

His sympathy with the afflicted was such as might have 
been expected from a man whose sensibilities were so acute 
and tender. He had the heart of a child ; the sight or tale' 
of grief and misery melted him to tears, while its relief, if 
within his power, called forth all the characteristic energies 
of his soul. When his feelings of pity were deeply aroused, 



* " In Vicksburg the yellow fever has been very distressing. They never had it 
before, and did not well know how to treat it ; so that it was much more fatal there 
than here. More than two hundred in that little place fell victims ; among them 
some of the very best of the inhabitants. I cannot tell you how anxious I was for 
Seargent after I heard of the fever being there. Oh! the thought haunted me on 
the passage by night and by day, and threw such a gloom over my spirits, that I 
should hear of his death when I got to New Orleans. He ia so reckless of himself 
and has such a contempt for danger, as you know, that he will not take the usual 
precautions. Well, he never left the city at all, although most of the inhabitants 
did, but went round constantly among the sick and dying, exposing himself in every 
way. Some of his friends were sick at his house, and one of them died there ; but 
he escaped. Is it not wonderful? It seemed like a special interposition of Provi- 
dence. His friends here, Mr. H. says, were exceedingly anxious and distressed 
about him— but he is safe. God be praised V— Extract from a Letter^ dated J^eto 
OrUam, Kov. 24, 1841. 



620 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

his whole frame would tremble and quiver like an aspen 
leaf. On one occasion a friend of his having been killed in 
a duel, he was designated to break the news to the bereaved 
wife ; for a long time he walked his room in agony, and 
was finally compelled to declare himself unequal to the sad 
task. Those who received his help or kindness, felt that they 
were conferring rather than accepting a favor, such a cordial 
glow of good will and modest entreaty accompanied the gift. 
Indeed, all the " signs of goodness," as thus described by 
Lord Bacon, were found in him. " If a man be gracious 
and courteous to strangers, it shows he is a citizen of th? 
world, and that his heart is no island, cut off from other 
lands, but a continent, that joins to them : if he be com- 
passionate towards the afflictions of others, it shows that 
his heart is like the noble tree that is wounded itself wheit 
it gives the balm ; if he easily pardons and remits offences^ 
it shows that his mind is planted above injuries, so that he 
cannot be shot ; if he be thankful for small benefits, it 
shows that he weighs men's minds, and not their trash."* 

Few things throw a finer light upon his character thai* 
the tone and contents of the letters addressed to him by 
strangers. Their number is truly surprising. They came, 
too, from all parts of the Union, and are written by persons 
in various conditions of life. Some of them are from young 
lawyers or teachers, in search of occupation : others from 
persons in distress, soliciting pecuniary aid or legal counsel ; 
others from unknown admirers, expressing their regard for 
him, or requesting a copy of one of his speeches ; others 
are from office-seekers, begging him to exert his political 
influence in their behalf. With the exception of the latter 
class, they are usually endorsed " answered" with the date.f 

* Essay on Goodness and Goodness of Nature. 

t The letters from office-seekers are almost invariably marked "Wants an 
Oflace— No Answer." After the election of Gen. Harrison, applications of this sort 



PERSOXAL TRAITS. 521 

Some of them are from ladies, and it is in these especially 
that one se^s v^flected the exquisite courtesy and gentleness 
of his nature. His refinement of feelmg, indeed, was won- 
derful. It resembled the delicate instinct of womanhood. 
How many little incidents might be mentioned in illustra- 
tion of this beautiful trait ! But they could not be related 
without intruding upoa th^ altar and inner sanctities of the 
domestic circle.* Of the siort of epistolary appeals made 



poured in upon him from North and St-^i'h, as if he were own cousin of the Presi- 
dent elect. They show how much was thc^ght of his influence ; but they betray 
great ignorance of his character. He was, probably, as little fitted to aid an 
office-seeker as any man in the country, lie bad not a particle of worldly cun- 
ning, was extremely sensitive and modest ab9:it referring to his own claims, and 
I have no doubt (setting aside all moral conside-ttions), would have more willingly 
risked his life in a duel than importune the Pres'dsnt for an office. Many a New 
York ward bully has had more potential voice in ^te distribution of the national 
spoils than he ever possessed. He was just as well calculated to dance or play a 
bagpipe, as to fish in the filthy waters of executive i.«itvonage. He was persuaded, 
once or twice, to try to " procure an appointment" fo.* an unfortunate relative; 
but he made awkward work of it. " As to your applyu.? for an office in the cus- 
toms," he wrote to a relative, " if you wish it, I will certairly exert my political influ- 
ence in furthering your views. But my advice is deci(?e^!j against it. A subor- 
dinate office is a poor and precarious mode of livelihood If you can possibly 
surmount your present difficulties, do not think of office. You would not like it. 
You are too proud and sensitive, and your independence wo'ikl suffer inevitably. 
However, I speak entirely on your account. If your judgmett points out tliat 
course, I will cheerfully aid you with my political friends." W. ii'ng later to the 
same relative, he says : " I regret much to hear that fortune still <"i-)«yns upon you ; 
but the longest storms must clear up at last. You know that you cm :;cmmand me 
to the extent of my power and ability. I feel no delicacy whatevei In soliciting 
for you the office you desire. I have never asked my political friends f;n- any tiling 
for myself; and knowing your qualifications, I do not see the sliglites' i<i propriety 
in urging your appointment." A little later he wrote again : " I receive(l •^oar let- 
ter this morning, and hasten to reply. I am both mortified and disgusted et the 
result of your application. Upon reflection, however, I cannot wonder ivi it. 
That an office should be given to a man simply because he is fitted for it and on'H- 
ble of fulfilling its duties, is a circumstance of such rare occurrence, that you n?<"'st 
not think it strange that you have not increased the number. I would to Heaves It 
were in my power to aid you ! I have suffered much myself but not as you ha-> I 
done." 

* An extract from a letter of a young friend, who had determined to change tt ' 
law for the study of divinity, will give an inkling of the characteristic referred tl 
The letter is dated January 8, 188S : "Your brother's kindness tome in his co« 



522 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

to him by persons in distress, the following is a sample. It 
is an extract from a letter, written by a lady in 1839 : 

** Although unknown to you, I have presumed to trespass 
a few moments on your valuable time and your patience. 
Be assured, sir, that the high regard I have for your pro- 
fessional capacity, united to that nobleness of soul and 
kindliness of nature, which, I am told, you possess in an 
eminent degree, has alone encouraged me to do so. Mr. 
Prentiss, you have a mother ! I, too, am a mother ; 
and to you, I am convinced, that hallowed name will 
never cease to have a charm. Mine has been a checkered 
life. Misfortune has pursued me with unparalleled per- 
severance. And now I implore your opiaion and advice 
on a subject, which involves my future destiny." She then 
goes on to tell him the long history of her troubles. The 
professional services gratuitously rendered by him in 
response to such appeals, were far more valuable than gold. 

Another class of letters are in acknowledgemeut of some 
kindness. The following extract from one addressed to 
him, shortly before his death, by a lady of New Orleans 
may serve as a specimen : 

"While the events of the past week are still fresh in my 
memory, and ere another closes, permit me, my dear sir, to ren- 
der to you the tribute of a grateful heart. You have been the 
instrument in the hand of God, of effecting that which none 
other could have done. "While alone and separated from my 
dear husband, you have generously come forward to my aid, 
and by so doing have caused the heart of both parents and 

versation and his acts, just before his departure for Washington, I shall never 
forget. It seems strange to me that such a man is not a Christian. He entered 
BO warmly into my views, and seemed so to anticipate my wishes, that I know I 
am not saying too much, when I say he is the most noble and generous being I 
ever knew. But I am afraid to give utterance, even to you, to the opinion, which, 
form his uniform kindness towards me, I entertain of him. I owe to him every 
thing I have." 



PERSONAL TRAITS. 523 

children to rejoice. "Words, however, I find inadequate to 
express the emotions of my heart. 

Praying that Heaven's choicest blessings may ever rest upon 
yourself and dear family, I subscribe myself your grateful 
friend. 

His unselfish, considerate temper, his hospitality, his 
extreme fondness for children, and his ardent affections 
alike fitted him to enjoy domestic life, and to be, what he 
ever was, its sun and centre.'* Page after page might be 
filled with anecdotes illustrative of his devotion to his 
mother, wife, children, and other near relatives. His feel- 
ing towards them, and the way he sometimes expressed it, 
would have seemed quite extravagant to one who did not 
know the perfect sincerity of his nature. But on this point 
his letters render it needless to say more.f 

* " I miss so much his kind smile and affectionate greeting. He never went to 
his oflBce without kissing us, when he left and when he returned. We always fol- 
lowed him to the door, and looked up the street after him, as far as we could see, 
and when his little carriage brought him home, we all went down to meet him, and 
receive again his fond kiss and words of love." — Extract of a Letter^ dated August 
31, 1850. 

t A remarkably characteristic anecdote, not only illustrative of his filial affection 
but also of his ready perception of the fitting thing to be said, is given as follows : 
When on a visit, some years ago, to the North, but after his reputation had become 
wide-spread, a distinguisiied lady of Portland took pains to obtain an introduction, 
by visiting the steamboat in which she learned he was to take his departure in a few 
moments. " I have wished to see you," said she to Mr. Prentiss, " for my heart 
has often congratulated the mother who has such a son." " Rather congratulate 
Vie son on having such a mother !" was the instant reply ; and it was unaffected 
and heartfelt. 

No man, perhaps, ever lived who received a greater number of personal compli- 
ments than Mr. Prentiss, but he always received them with that peculiar grace and 
dignity so eminent in his reply to the lady of Portland. One day, in New Orleans, 
I met him in the street, leading by the hand his two sons. I was struck with their 
evident resemblance to their father, and complimented him upon it. " Ah," said 
he, with the fondest look of affection, " they have the light hair and blue eye of tho 
Anglo-Saxon robber ; they are American boys." — Mr. lUorpe's Reminiscences. 



524 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 



CHAPTER XXYIII 



Letters — Severe IHness — Visits the North with his Family — Reminiscences of thi! 
Visit — Fishing Excursions and Rides about Newburyport — His Interest in the Hun- 
garian Struggle — Trips to Boston, New Bedford, and Martha's Vineyard — Ilia 
Regard for Old Men — His Conversational Talent — Returns South — Letters — Rapid 
Failure of his Health — A Reminiscence by Col. Cobb — Devotion to his Profes- 
sional Labors — Is invited to address the Story Law Association — Letters- 
Approach of the Final Struggle — His last Appearance in Court— Letters to his 
Wife— Sudden Attack— Is removed to Natchez— The Closing Scene. 

^T. 40-41. 1849-50. 



Let us now return to the narrative. In December, 1848, 
the cholera broke out in New Orleans. In the course of the 
winter Mr. Prentiss had an attack, closely resembling that 
terrible disease, which brought him to the verge of death. 
He had not yet recovered from the prostrating effects of his 
political exertions during the previous summer and autumn ; 
indeed, he never recovered from them. The weather, too, as 
appears from the following letters, was enough of itself to 
engender pestilence. 

TO HIS YOUNGEST BEOTHEE. 

Nkw Orleans, Jan. 15, 1849. 

My Dear Brother : — 

We have at length passed safely tlirough the terri- 
ble epidemic which has filled this city, during the kst month, 
with so much alarm and gloom. The disease has been bad 
enough in reahty, but imagination has clothed it with a thousand 
unreal horrors. 



LETTERS. '525 

r never witnessed a greater panic. In three or four tlays after 
it broke out, not less than 15,000 people fled from the city, and 
those that remained were little less frightened than those who 
ran away. It was soon apparent, however, that the mortality 
was principally confined to the exposed and the intemperate 
among the poorer classes ; especially to the poor emigrants, who, 
arriving in large numbers, were huddled together upon the 
levee, without clothing or shelter. The weather for several 
weeks was worse than I ever before saw, and tended greatly to 
aggravate the disease. Few persons have died among those who 
were in comfortable condition and prudent in their diet. I do 
not miss more than two or three of my own acquaintances. One 
of our little servants was taken ill at the beginning of the disease, 
but recovered readily. We have all been sufferers from bad 
colds ; otherwise my family has been remarkably well. To-day 
Jeanie has commenced going to school : she seems perfectly 
delighted with the idea, and I think she will learn rapidly. The 
baby grows finely, and is the best child we have had. I never 
hear her cry. She is full of vivacity and good temper. "We 
expect Mrs. "Williams down in a few days, to spend a month or 
two with us. 

There is much gossip as to Gen. Taylor's Cabinet ; but I do not 
believe he has yet made up his mind definitively. Crittenden 
has been offered a place, but has not yet decided to accept. 

My love to L. and the dear little children, in which Mary and 
our little brood join heartily. 

Your affectionate brother, 

Seaegknt. 



TO HIS MOTHER. 

New Orlbans, Jtune 7, 1849. 



My Dear Mother: — 

You have already heard through Mary, of the 
severe illness under which I labored several weeks since. By 
the blessing of a kind Providence, I have entirely recovered from 



626 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

the malady, though still very weak from its effects. It was not 
the cholera I had, but an inflammation of the breast and bowels, 
caused by long continued colds, aggravated by over-exertion. 
Now that is over, I do not regret my sickness ; on the contrary, 
I think it was of great service to me. My appetite, which had 
for two or three years dwindled to almost nothing, has revived, 
and so soon as I pick up my strength, I shall feel like a new man. 
I was sick, that is, confined to my bed, about two weeks. When 
I got well enough to move I went up to ISTatchez, where I had 
some business, and where I stayed two weeks. About ten days 
ago I sent Mary and the children up to Longwood, Geordie had 
been quite ill, and Mary was worn out, and though they did not 
like to go without me, I insisted upon it. I have had several 
letters from them, and they are now all doing nicely. This city 
is in a very disagreeable condition; one-half of it overflowed, 
the weather hot and sultry, and the stench intolerable. I fear 
it will be exceedingly sickly this summer. I shall get through 
my business in a week or ten days, when I shall go up to Natchez, 
spend a couple of weeks with my family, and then come on 
North and enjoy the happiness of again seeing you, my dear 
mother, as well as the rest of our loved ones. My pleasure, how 
ever, will be much diminisljed, I fear, by not being able to show 
you my dear wife and children. It is not absolutely ceptain, but 
I think there is little probability of their accompanying nie. I 
supposed at one time I had made such ari-angeraents as would 
enable me to take them ; but I have been disappointed, and at 
present see no prospect except to leave them, during my absence, 
at Longwood. I know this will be a great disappointment to 
you all, but it cannot be greater than ours. I think I shall go 
by sea, provided a good steamer leaves here any time between 
the 1st and 10th of July. The doctor advises me to do so, and 
says the sea air will brace me up and restore my strength. I got 
A.'s letter to Mary yesterday, and took the liberty of reading it 
before I sent it on to her. And now, my dearest mother, I must 
bid you good-bye, for I feel rather weak from writing this 
scrawl, which I fear you will hardly be able to read. I trust it 
will not be many days before I shall ask your blessing, which I 



LETTERS. 52T 

value more than any worldly thing. Give my best love to deai 
Anna, Mr. Stearns, and the little ones, and believe me always 

Your affectionate and devoted son, 

S. S. Peextiss. 

He writes under the same date to his youngest brother : 

We have had a miserable winter in New Orleans, and the city 
is still in a horrible condition ; one-half of it is inundated, and 
the whole of it is reeking with villainous odors, swarming with 
mosquitoes, and filled with cholera. I apprehend a terrible pes- 
tilence upon the subsiding of the waters. As yet they have not 
receded. Great distress has ensued from this new calamity. 
Most of the submerged districts are inhabited by thd poorer peo- 
ple, and no pecuniary calculations can reach the amount of suf- 
fering which bas been and still is being experienced. The whole 
scene is sickening to both the physical and mental eyes. I shall 
get away from it in ten days, I think. 

I got a letter from S. the other day. It was dated at St. 
Joseph's, Mo. He writes in good health and spirits, and I trust 
may be more fortunate in the gold diggins than he has been in 
the leaden ones. The accounts from California are truly won- 
derful, and who knows but our good brother may yet make a 
fortune ; perhaps find a diamond big as a hen's egg^ or at least 
as large as an ostrich's. He has had some of the experience of 
" Sinbad the Sailor ;" perhaps he may have some of his luck. 

I shall keep you moving when I come on, for I expect it will 
be rather a flying visit. See that the trout are prepared for my 
hook. Much love to all of you. 

He writes again from Long wood, June 2t : 

Well, my dear brother, what do you think, Mary is coming on 
with me after all. Geordie has been sick, and still remains in 
bad health, and the doctor thinks, as do we all, that a trip North 
will accomphsh for him more than medicine. So when I came 
up here the other day, I found it all arranged that Mary should 



528 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

take Jeanie, Geordie, and the baby, and accompany me, leaving 
Seargy here with his grandmamma. Of course, the plan was 
agreeable to me, and as I found, in winding up my business for 
the summer, that my means would turn out somewhat better 
than 1 expected, I at once assented. We shall leave New Orleans 
either in the steamer Falcon, which sails on the 14th prox., or 
in the Crescent City, which starts three or four days afterwards. 
I have written to New Orleans on the subject, and as soon as I 
determine, will let you know. "We are all well except Geordie 
and myself, and our health is improving. 

He reached Newburyport early in August. The pleasant 
memory of this his last pilgrimage North will never be 
effaced, though it was sadly clouded by the state of his 
health, and by the general gloom which pervaded the coun- 
try, in consequence of the ravages of cholera. 

A large portion of the family circle were assembled at 
Newburyport, awaiting his arrival. Never shall I forget the 
first glimpse of him as, holding one of his children by the 
hand, he eagerly pressed his way from the cars. Quantum 
mutatus ah illo ! A score of years seemed, of a sudden, to 
have passed over his head ; his hair had become thick set 
with grey, while every feature of that noble countenance 
was stamped with deep, unwonted lines of care, sorrow, and 
disease. It needed no interpreter to explain that these were 
the harbingers of Death I 

And yet, when he found himself once more near his 
mother's hearth, it seemed to revive him like the breath of 
spring ; the old smile, the old gaiety and playful humor, the 
old swelling tide of life, ever and anon, came back, and he 
would appear as aforetime. On the day after his arrival, 
he went to Boston and purchased presents for the chil- 
dren. He returned in the evening, highly delighted ; and 
when, calling the whole flock around him, he seated himself 
in the midst of them, and distributed his generous gifts, no 



HIS LAST VISIT NORTH. 629 

prince on coronation day could look happier or raore like a 
king. One would never have dreamed that he was sick. 

For several days and nights he haunted the Merrimac in 
quest of blue-fish, which had made their appearance there, 
it was said, for the first time in seventy years ; but the winds 
were contrary and he caught nothing. We took some 
delightful drives, also, up and down the banks of that beau- 
tiful river. How well I remember one of them I It was a 
charming summer afternoon ; nature smiled with unwonted 
loveliness ; while the sight of the smooth flowing stream, 
along the edges of which we rode, the quiet New England 
landscape, dotted with sweet homes of virtue js industry, 
thickening, here and there, into a neat village, with its school 
house, its churches, and its varied insignia of honest thrift, 
the singing of birds, and that indescribable rural stillness, 
which sometimes marks the approach of autumn — all served 
to soothe him into the most gentle and communicative mood. 
Indeed, it was a scene to make one forget, for the moment, 
that there is aught of evil in the world. How mildly he 
spoke of his old political foes in Mississippi, having even a 
kind word for some of the Repudiating editors ; men, as I 
supposed, quite beyond the pale of his charity. How touch- 
ingly he alluded to certain trials and disappointments he 
had passed through, and yet without uttering a syllable of 
reproach against those who were chiefly responsible for them. 
His worst enemy could not have listened to this conversation 
without confessing that he harbored neither malice nor 
revenge in his bosom. Among other things, he related, with 
the most tender and gratified emotion, the following inci- 
dent. An old Mississippi friend, between whom and himself 
a total estrangement had sprung up in consequence of politi- 
cal differences, was visited with severe misfortunes, ending 
in temporary derangement of mind. Not long before he 
left New Orleans, this gentleman, who chanced to be iu the 

VOL. n. 23 



530 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

r 

city, met him one day as he was stepping aboard a steam- 
boat, and rushing' towards him, eagerly grasped his hand, 
exclaiming, as the tears trickled down his cheeks : " For 
Heaven's sake, Prentiss, let's you and I be friends again I 
I always hked you, and cannot bear this alienation. Let 
us be friends again !"* 

Another day was spent in a family excursion to Hampton 
Beach. Before starting, he insisted on getting a special 
supply of fishing-tackle and overcoats. With his usual pro- 
digality, he purchased enough to last a year or two. The 
ride, and the sight q^ the ocean, seemed to refresh his whole 
being. But he was sadly depressed, on reaching the hotel, 
by learning that a steamer had just arrived, bringing news 
of the surrender of Gorgey. When he caught the tenor 
of the intelligence, his countenance fell, as if his own coun- 
try had lost an army. He watched with profound interest 
the progress of the great Hungarian struggle ; and shortly 
after his return South, in the last popular address ever 
made by him, paid a gorgeous tribute to the heroism 
of the Magyar patriots. No question of European politics, 
probably, ever so wrought upon his imagination. It seemed 
associated in his mind with all the romance of Eastern his- 
tory, while it appealed to his judgment as a contest for con- 
stitutional freedom. 

Another day was spent in Boston, where he had the plea- 
sure of meeting Mr. Webster, from whom he received a 
cordial invitation to visit Marshfield, He was especially 
delighted with a drive out through several of the ancient 
and highly cultivated towns which form the suburbs of 
Boston, expressing a sort of forlorn hope that he might 
one day be able to come and live there himself. The sight 

* One of the most touching tributes to Mr. P., after his death, was from an insane 
person. It appeared in a Northern paper, and was written, I hare some reason to 
think, by the individual referred to above. 



VISIT TO NEW, BEDFORD. 531 

of SO much rural scenery, adorned by all the appliances of 
art, wealth, and elegant taste, seemed to bring 'back the 
memory of early days, and revive, for a moment, the wish to 
grow old and to die in New England. 

From Boston he went to take once more by the hand 
his revered friend Mr. Clay, then sojourning at New- 
port. Mr. Clay and Mr. Webster were both, at this time, 
in feeble health, and he evidently expected long to survive 
them. Little did he dream that those illustrious statesmen 
were yet to perform what a large portion of their country- 
men regarded as their greatest works of patriotic wisdom 
and self-devotion ! 

Another excursion, which he enjoyed very much, was to 
Martha's Vineyard, in pursuit of blue-fish. On the way, he 
tarried a day or two at New Bedford, and was quite asto- 
nished to observe the princely residences, and other monu- 
ments of wealth and commercial prosperity, which that beau- 
tiful city has built for itself out of the spoil of distant oceans. 
In his Pilgrim address, he had drawn a vivid picture of the 
hardy whalemen of New England. " Bold and restless as the 
old Northern Yikings, they go forth to seek their fortunes 
, in the mighty deep. The ocean is their pasture, and over 
its wide prairies they follow the monstrous herds that feed 
upon its azure fields. As the hunter casts his lasso upon 
*the wild horse, so they throw their lines upon the tumbling 
whale. They 'draw out Leviathan with a hook.' They 
' fill his skin with barbed irons,' and in spite of his terrible 
strength, they ' part him among the merchants.' To them 
there are no pillars of Hercules." He had now an opportu- 
nity of witnessing, for the first time, the implements and 
fruits of this adventurous seamanship. On the morning 
after his arrival, a chowder excursion to a neighboring 
island-rock was arranged by Capt. Robert Gibbs, and under 
the conduct of that true-hearted man, we soon found our 



632 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

selves in the offing, when lo ! bearing down upon us, a 
stately Whale-ship, 



*' bound for the isles 



Of Javan or Gadive, 

With all her bravery on, and tackle trim, 

Sails filled, and streamers waving." 



Fortunately, she chanced at that moment to " heave to" for 
a farewell visit from her owner, who kindly invited us 
aboard. It would take a long time to describe the war- 
like appearance and immense outfit of one of these Titans of 
the deep. Her captain was a young man, just married, as 
we understood ; and four years might elapse ere his return. 
It was not strange, therefore, that his manly countenance 
was somewhat clouded. New Bedford and Nantucket are 
full of melancholy tales of whaleships coming in, after a 
weary voyage round the world, with flag half-mast, to 
announce to the young wife that her long-expected lord, 
unknowing, perhaps, that he was a father, sleeps in an 
ocean grave. Or, while still far from the shore, the youth- 
ful captain, eagerly questioning the pilot for news from home 
— the first, perhaps, that has greeted him since his depar- 
ture — is smitten with the dreadful response : '' Your wife 
and child are both dead 1 "* But such painful images soon 
vanished, as her canvas tightening before a stiff breeze, the 
gallant vessel resumed her course, and was quickly lost 
beneath the distant horizon. This little episode imparted 
new zest to our fishing and chowder, and when the sea 
excursion was completed by a rural walk thi-ough the gar- 



* The pastoral experience of our whaling ports, during the last half century 
would afford materials for a book, more interesting and pathetic than any tale of 
fiction. 



REMINISCENCES OF HIS LAST VISIT NORTH. 533 

den of Mr. Arnold — one of the finest in all '^ew England — 
he had passed a day of such pleasurable and salutary excite- 
ment, that it seemed as if a few score more like it would 
quite restore him to health again. 

His trip to Martha's Yineyard though more stirring, was 
rather an injury than a benefit ; for the blue-fish, which had 
proved so shy in the Merrimac, were here only too willing 
to bite, and he would not rest until he had caught several 
score and " beaten Black Daniel" (Mr. Webster), who had 
been there just before him. 

He was greatly disappointed in not being able to attend 
the annual commencement at Bowdoin. He had made his 
arrangements to be present, but a temporary lameness com- 
pelled him to keep his room. He spoke with warm affection 
of his Alma Mater, and said the sombre aspect of the old 
pines, which surround it, and the sighing of the wind 
through their branches, had made an indelible impression 
upon him while at college. He used to saunter through 
them, or lie down under their summer shade, and project 
fancy sketches of the future. His reminiscences of the lec- 
ture-room of Professor Cleaveland were particularly vivid, 
and he delighted to expatiate upon the genial gifts and 
acquirements of that veteran in Natural Science. 

While at Newburyport, he was gratified with making the 
acquaintance of the venerable Daniel Dana, D.D., a gentle- 
man of the old school, and versed beyond most of the 
profession in public afi'airs. He seldom appeared more in 
his element than when discoursing with men of this class ; his 
rare conversational gifts shone, at such times, with unusual 
grace ; and there was always in his manner towards old 
men a deference and refined courtesy, which never failed to 
attract and charm them. In his wildest days, and when 
encircled by boisterous companions, the presence of a cler^ 



534 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

gyman, whether young or old, commanded instant respect.* 
He had, as has been said, an innate delicacy and consi- 
derateness of feeling, which seemed to belong rather to the 
gentle nature of woman than to that of a man exposed to 
the brazen influences of the world. On his way North, 
in 1840, a venerable and celebrated divine — the President 
of one of our principal colleges — became acquainted with 
him, and was so captivated by his manners and conversa- 
tion, that, after they had travelled awhile together, one 
might easily have mistaken them for father and son. 

His conversational powers were, indeed, quite as remark- 
able as his more public gifts. To his friends, his familiar 
talk was a perennial spring of genial and ever-varying 
delight. He had an inexhaustible fund of amusing or 
instructive anecdote, partly the spoil of much reading, but 
still more of it the ripe fruit of his own experience and 
observatiou of life. His manner of telling a story was very 
fine ; there was such drollery and fun and gay humor in 
his lork, tone, and gesture, that, even without novelty in 
the matter, or point in the language, he would have been 
a niost entertaining story-teller ; but with the addition of 
originality and a diction wrought in the very phrase and 
spirit of the comic muse, he was inimitable, " Let any one," 
writes the late Judge Bullard, " let anv one, who should 



* In the summer of 1838, he made an excursion from Washington in company 
with several members of Congress and other friends. It was a sweltering day, 
and as the party took their seats together in the cars they all, one after another, 
poured forth a thpughtless and profane malediction upon the weather. A plain 
Baptist clergyman, who was sitting near, at once expostulated with them on the 

impropriety of using such language. One of the group, Gen. , was highly 

offended at the reproof, and told him to " hush up." Mr. Prentiss, however, 
instantly came to the rescue. He said, the rebuke was well-deserved ; that the 
clergyman had only done his duty ; and that they were all wrong, wholly wrong. 
He then proceeded, in most eloquent strain, to expatiate upon the manner in which 
his mother had trained him to treat sacred things. I received this account, not 
ong since, from one of the offending party. 



HIS CONVERSATIONAL GIFTS. 535 

have witnessed, for the first and only time, the represent- 
ation of a comedy, the Midsummer NigMs Dream, for 
example, sit down and endeavor to give an account of it, 
from memory, in writing to a friend ; he will find it impos- 
sible to convey any adequate idea of the infinite drollery, 
of the playful humor, of the sudden outbreaks of eloquence, 
which charmed him at the time, but left only a general 
impression upon the mind. Occasional anecdotes and 
repartees he might, indeed, recollect quite vividly ; but 
then the peculiar manner and turn of expression, the very 
aroma of wit, has evaporated, and cannot be restored. 
Many and many an evening have I passed in the society of 
your lamented brother for a series of years, which appeared 
afterwards, and even yet, a delightful dream, but it would 
be an utterly hopeless attempt to give any readable account 
of them." 

His conversation was as much characterized by solid 
judgment and original thought, as by wit and humor.' 
Whatever the topic of discourse, whether literature, poli- 
tics, law, science, or philosophy, he was ever ready, and his 
observations were always acute, striking, and marked by a 
vein of keen, practical sense. His mind was naturally 
reflective and inquisitive, while, at the same time, singularly 
clear and accurate in its perceptions. He never talked 
vaguely or at random ; his words always had a plain and 
definite meaning. His very jokes he " cracked " with intel- 
ligence ; and in this respect there was a perfect resemblance 
between his conversation and his oratory ; a fine, genial 
method pervading both. His intellect was so potential, and, 
at the same time, so full of logical force, that while it was 
continually blossoming forth in a thousand new forms of wit 
and fantasy, he never counterfeited truth and nature. 

Reference has already been made to his fondness for books 
of fiction. There was, probably, not a prominent scene, or 



536 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

character, in all the works of Fielding, Scott, Cooper, 
Irving, Bulwer, Dickens, and Thackeray, with which he was 
not so familiar that he could at once describe or repro- 
duce it in conversation. His reading, too, embraced a great 
deal of periodical literature. One of his special favorites la 
this line was Blackwood h Magazine, which he preferred to 
all others. But he did not fail to acquaint himself with the 
graver issues of the press. One of his last literary inten- 
tions was to read Dante and Plato, that he might judge for 
himself whether their works were worthy of their exalted 
fame. He expressed much delight with some things he had 
recently met in the writings of those two models of noble 
scholarship and Christian manhood — Dr. Arnold and Julius 
Hare. He cherished a hearty affection for Old England, 
loved to speak of her as the Mother Country, and though 
not insensible to her faults, was fully aware of the vast debt 
we owe to her for no small portion of what is good or stable 
in our social system, our law and our political institutions. 
This feeling was, doubtless, increased by his observing how 
the demagogues, and certain repudiators fresh from Erin, 
instinctively abused the land of Shakspeare, Milton, and the 
Pilgrim Fathers. 

Many other points might be dwelt upon ; such as a long 
discussion on the old distinction between reason and the 
understanding ; an account of the great Poultney claim, for 
the trial of which he had just prepared an elaborate brief ; 
a ride along the banks of the Merrimac, during which he 
spoke with warm, grateful interest of the young men of the 
Republic, and the regard they had shown for him, adding, 
modestly, that some things in his career might perhaps 
encourage those of them who were poor ; another ride to 
the sea in quest of quails and sand-birds, during which he 
gave some highly interesting incidents of Mr. Clay's oratory, 
and answered many questions about his own, expressing at 



HIS RETURN SOUTH. 53T 

the end his utter dread of " going into the hands of the 
reporters ;" our long after-dinner talks under the garden- 
trees ; — but it is time to draw these remiuiscences to a 
close. 

How vividly, as if it were yesterday, I recall the last time 
I ever saw him I It was on a j&ue autumnal morning, as he 
was leaving Newburyport for Washington City, whither he 
was called on professional business. The plan was, that he 
should rejoin his wife and children at New Bedford, and 
pass a couple of weeks there with as many of the family as 
could, in the meanwhile, be assembled. He was in excellent 
spirits and exceedingly gentle ; as he stood for some time 
conversing with the Rev. Dr. Dana, who also awaited the 
cars, his countenance beamed with that peculiar radiance, 
which marked it in earlier days ; at length, the signal 
whistle was heard, and saying, with his sweet smile, " I 
shall see you in New Bedford — take good care of my hen 
and chickens !" he bade me farewell, and gave me the last 
earthly grasp of that bountiful hand I 

He found it would be necessary to give up the visit to 
New Bedford, and go home in the steamer Ohio, on the 
20th September, or else return by the southern land route, 
which was wholly beyond his strength. The dangerous ill- 
ness of my little boy prevented me from meeting him in 
New York ; but his sister and brother-in-law, Mr. Stearns, 
joined him there, and had the satisfaction of a parting 
token, as the noble steamer bore him away to his South- 
western home. . 

He thus announced his safe arrival : 

New Orleans, October 2, 1849 . 
My Dkae BrothePw : — 

We arrived here safe and sound the day before 
yesterday, at five o'dock, p. m. I telegraphed William, request- 
VOL. II. 23* 



638 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. • 

ing him to inform you and mother, so that I presume you are, 
by this time, aware of our safety and welfare. We had a terri- 
ble time for the first two days : the sea " wrought " exceedingly. 
There was a severe gale and our vessel rolled among the waves 
like a child's plaything. Every one on board was sick. I suf- 
fered much more than Mary or the children. For three days 
I vomited continually, and suffered more than ever I did before 
in my life. To add to the terrors of the storm, about three 
o'clock in the morning of the first night, I was awakened by 
the startling cry oi Jire., mingled with the shrieks of many of 
the passengers, who burst from their staterooms in the most 
inconceivable alarm. The* fire, which originated from a broken 
lamp, was soon quelled ; and after the storm had subsided, we 
had a quiet, and, excepting that it was very hot, a pleasant 
voyage. The vessel moved along as smoothly as if it were 
in the river. There was a beautiful moon, and we frequently 
sat up on deck till midnight. 

I find the city perfectly healthy. It is true, there are 
some cases of yellow fever in the hospitals, but none have 
occurred as yet in private practice, and it is now too late to 
allow any serious apprehension of an epidemic. We found our 
house had just been painted, and everything was, of course, 
topsy-turvy. Mary is busy putting things in order, but it will 
take several days to make it look like home. We shall not go 
up to Natchez, but have written for Mrs. Williams to come 
down, and bring dear little Seargy. We are longing to see him. 
I need not say how much I regret the sudden and almost rude 
manner in which we terminated our visit. I had anticipated 
much pleasure in sojourning with you at New Bedford a couple 
of weeks, and do not doubt we should have had a very delight- 
ful visit. It went very hard with me to give it up. I especially 
grieve that I left without seeing our dear mother again. I am 
convinced, however, that I acted wisely in following your sug- 
gestion and coming on the Ohio. My business affairs required 
my attention, and the climate here is also, at this season, more 
genial for me tlian that of the North. I hav^e no doubt my health 
will pow be rapidly restored. I beheve the journey has been of 



LETTERS. 539 

great service to me, and also to Mary and the children. The 
latter especially are as fat and hearty as so many little pigs. I 
comfort myself with the idea that after mother and A. have 
removed to Newark, I shall pay them a flying visit every year 
or two ; and I also live in hope that we shall yet have mother 
to spend a winter with ns in New Orleans. 

I trust that a kind Providence has restored yom* dear little 
boy to health, and that you are now free from all aflQiction, I 
am looking anxiously for letters from you all. Mary joins me 
in love to L., yourself, and the children. 

Your affectionate brother, 

Seaegent. 



TOniSMOTHEE. 

Netw Orleans, Oct. 81, 1849. 

My Deae Mothee : — 

I have delayed writing longer than I intended, 
owing to various causes beyond my control. We have all been 
suffering much from cold since our return, first one, and then 
another. At present Seargy and I are the afflicted ones. The 
weather is delightful, and there is every prospect of a pleasant 
winter. It was a sore disappointment to me, to leave without 
seeing you again ; but, on the whole, it was fortunate we came 
out at the time we did. Mrs. Williams has paid us a nice visit ; 
she brought Seargy down with her. I would give anything 
if you could see him. He is entirely different from all the 
rest, both in appearance and disposition. He is more quiet 
and sensitive than either of the other children. Little Una 
walks perfectly well now, and is running about all the time. 
All of them remember you, and talk a great deal about you. I 
have still the strongest hope and belief that you will soon come 
and spend a winter with us. How I wish you were here now! 
I never saw more beautiful weather. It is cool, without frost, 
and the sun has been shining brightly for more than a week. 

I suppose Anaa is now safely settled in her new home. The 
more I think of it, the more I am pleased with the change. It 
is better in all respects for her and Mr. S., her children, and 



540 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

for you. "When you move there, as you will, of course, in the 
spring, you will find it a mucli pleasanter place than IlTewbury- 
port. The climate is milder and better fitted for your- health. 
Perhaps, I may take a rapid trip North myself, and assist in 
your removal. However, there will be plenty of time to settle 
that; and, in the meantime, you must make yourself as com- 
fortable as possible. You will feel very lonesome, of course, in 
A.'s absence, but then it will be only for a short time. Good 
Elinor K. will, I trust, be with you, and will prove a great 
comfort. Mary and I will write you often, so I hope you will 
not be dispirited at the prospect of the winter. I start on 
Monday to attend courts in the country, and shall be gone 
three or four weeks. Mary and the children join me in much 
love to you, and kind remembrance to Miss Elinor. 

Your affectionate and devoted son, 

Seaegent. 

On the 10th of Dec, he wrote : 

I returned a week ago from a month's trip into the north- 
western part of the State, and was so worn out that I have 
not been able to do anything before to-day. I went to the 
parish of Morehouse to attend the trial of an important will 
case. The weather was very inclement and the roads horrible, 
some thirty or forty miles being through the worst swamp 
I ever saw in my life. I suffered a great deal from cold and wet, 
and have had, in consequence, a slight return of my old malady, 
have been improving slowly since I got home ; but it will take 
a week or two before I can expect to recover my strength 
entirely. On the whole, however, my general health is better 
than when I returned from the North. Mary wrote you, I 
believe, that I had had an operation performed on my throat, 
which resulted most beneficially ; it has nearly cured me of my 
gagging fits in the morning. 

You see the "Whigs have been defeated in this State. It was 
no more than I expected; they can never bear success. 
Immediately after victory they disband, and throw away their 



NEW-ENGLAND DINNER. 541 

arms. Of course, the next contest finds them wholly unpre 
pared. Poor old Zack will have a hard time of it this winter, I 
fear. He will find demagogues and pohticians much more 
diflScult to manage than Mexicans. 

On Forefather's Day, although extremely feeble, he made 
a special effort to be present at the New England Dinner, 
for the purpose of declaring his sentiments upon the troubled 
state of the country. He offered a toast expressive of a 
fervent wish, that the time might never come when a citizen 
of New Orleans should find himself a stranger in Boston, or 
a citizen of Boston be a foreigner in New Orleans. He then 
proceeded, in a most impressive speech, to point out, can- 
didly and plainly, the faults on loth sides, North and South, 
set forth the incalculable woes that would follow disunion, 
and concluded with the remark, that if such a calamity was 
coming, he could only cast in his lot with the land of his 
wife and children. At the Dinner, a year before, he had 
pronounced a glowing and heartfelt eulogy upon the Pilgrim 
mothers. 

On the 25th of December, he wrote to his mother : 

I wish you, my dearest mother, a happy and merry Christmas. 
"Would you were here to enjoy it with Mary, the children, and 
myself! It is one of the loveliest days I ever saw; just cool 
enough to be comfortable, and the sun as bright as if it had 
never been covered by a cloud. Indeed we have had several 
days of the most beautiful weather you can imagine. Mary has 
been up to her elbows, for the last week, making boned tur- 
keys, mince-pies, and other goodies, while the children, under 
pretence of helping Mamma, manage to get their fingers wher- 
ever there are any plums or spice;?. The dear little things are 
in excellent health, and enjoy themselves beyond measure. Una 
is the gayest of them all ; she is singing and hopping about all 
day like a bird. Oh ! how delighted we should all be if you 
were away from cold Newburyport, and enjoying this sunny 



542 MEMO.IR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

day with us I * * * My health is gradually but 
firmly improving. Mary and the children are all well, and 
join in much love to you and our good friend Miss Elinor. God 
bless you, my dear mother. 

Early in 1850 his health became so feeble that he could 
with difficulty eat or sleep ; yet, he scarcely ever worked so 
hard. A single case before the Recorder occupied nearly 
three weeks, exposing him to the worst kind of New 
Orleans winter weather, when he should have rather kept 
his bed. His disease became more and more obstinate, and 
oftentimes, after toiling all day at his office, or in court, he 
would pass a large part of the night in painful attacks, 
followed by severe fainting turns. He wag a perfect 
novice in sickness, and, as is apt to be the case with men of 
robust constitution and strong will, he found it hard to 
follow the rules of prudence, or to subject himself to medical 
prescription. A terrible restlessness and nervous irritability 
also seized upon him — sure precursors of what was coming I 
One human being alone could tell his sufferings, mental and 
physical, during this sad winter. His own graphic picture 
of the poor Irishman besieged by famine, is scarcely an 
exaggerated description of the manner in which his relent- 
less foe conquered him. He made heroic and desperate 
resistance ; but it was a case past cure, as many of his 
friends too plainly saw. Indeed he, at times, felt it himself. 
The following touching reminiscence by Col. Joseph B. Cobb, 
shows this : 

A few months anterior to his death, he chanced to visit 
Mobile, hoping that the fresh sea air might recruit him suffi- 
ciently to enter with wonted zeal upon the argument of an 
important law-case, then pending in some court at Kew Orleans. 
I arrived in Mobile the day he had appointed to leave. Not 
finding him at his hotel, I was directed to go down to the New 



"«<. 



REMINISCENCE BY COL. COBB. 543 

Orleans packet, as be had already embarked for return with her 

to his home. There I found him, but sadly, sadly altered. I 

saw at a glance that the Death-angel had already marked him for 

early prey. The hollow, sunken eye, and the peaked nose, and 

sallow cheek, indicated too plainly that disease had baffled skill 

and science, and that the sands of life were fast running out. I 

was too much touched not to show my feelings. He fixed his 

eye steadily on me, and asked if his appearance did not shock 

me, and if I did not think " that he was nearly ready for the 

shroud and the coffin." Finding, somewhat to my surprise, I 

confess, that he was entirely calm and resigned to any event, I 

coul4 not reconcile myself to act uncandidly with him at so 

serious a time ; and I, therefore, said to him that his looks fully 

confirmed the fears I had entertained for his health from the 

many rumors that had reached me, and that I regretted to say 
that necessity seemed to require of him to set his house in 

order for the last earthly trial. His reply was, that he thouglit 

his chances for recovery quite hopeless, and that his mind was 

made up to await the event. 

We then left the lower saloon, and found seats upon the upper 
deck. While there conversing, a little, sickly-looking fruit- 
girl came up to us, ofiering to sell her apples and oranges. The 
offer was so common that I turned off, and continued our con- 
versation, without paying the least attention to the little cateress. 
Your brother's features, however, lighted up into a most benig- 
nant smile and expression ; and although he could not venture 
to eat her fruit, he bought the worth of several dimes, only to 
give them to the passing servants of the boat. His heart could 
never resist an appeal, and this little incident seems to have been 
the offspring of some suddenly-aroused sympathy, induced, most 
probably, by the wan appearance and sickly complexion of the 
poor young girl. 

At this time Mr. Pre^'tiss had, in the pocket of his surtout, 
an idle production of mine; and, after most kindly compli- 
menting its poor merits (which I felt was rather the result of 
partiality for the author, than the unbiased judgment of an 
accomplished critic, as he was), he proceeded to say, in a tone 



544 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

of striking sadness, that he always had clierished a taste for 
literature, and that he only regretted the waste of so many 
bright hours of his hfe, which might have been devoted to the 
more close cultivation of this taste. I replied that there were 
few literary men who would not willingly give up their hopes 
of fame for that which already clustered around his name. He 
answered, with a melancholy smile, that the world's applause 
had alwavs astonished him ; that whilst he was not conscious 
of ever having neglected the business of client or constituent, he 
had really been an idle man ; that he felt he had not improved 
his time as he might and should have done. This very humble 
estimation of his career was not shared by me, and I wondered 
that a man who had filled his country with his fame as an ora- 
tor should entertain so lowly an opinion of his own merits. 

This was the last time that I ever met with your brother. He 
partially promised to join me in New York or at Niagara Falls 
during the summer following; but the rapid incursions of his 
ruthless disease, the fond attachments of home and familj'-, and, 
I suppose, the multiplication of business, prevented the fulfill- 
ment of his projects. He afterwards, as I learned, gave me the 
last proof of quite a long friendship by writing, for one of the 
New Orleans papers, a very flattering notice of the idle work 
already alluded to. 

In spite, however, of nis own misgivings and of the warn- 
ing of friends, he continued his labors with unabated dili- 
gence, and fancied that every little lull in his malady was an 
omen of returning health. It is wonderful how this sort of 
delusion will seize upon minds of the clearest judgment, and 
reduce them to a state of almost infantile credulity respect- 
ing the plainest symptoms of approaching death. In the 
case of Mr. Prentiss it was, no doubt, owing in part to the 
consciousness of unbroken mental power, and also to that 
marvellous faculty of hope by which he was distinguished. 
Early in February he writes : '' My health is improving, 
and -I doubt not will be entirely restored, so soon as the 



EXTRACTS FROM LETTERS. 545 

Bpring weather commences." On the 9th of March he 
writes to his mother : " My health is tolerable, but I do 
not doubt will improve rapidly as the warm weather 
advances. I have taken a beautiful cottage on the sea- 
shore for the summer. It is at Pass Christian. There is a 
fine fruit-orchard and garden attached, and a splendid 
grapery. Mary's health is not very good, and I am anxious 
she should get away as soon as possible. She and the 
childrfen will move over about the middle of May, and not 
return till November. I shall not be able to go till the 
latter part of June. It will be a delightful place for them, 
and I anticipate much pleasure in escaping from the city 
and breathing the pure sea-breeze." 

On the 29th of March he writes again to his youngest 
brother : 

I am several letters in arrears to you ; but, in reality, I have, 
for the last six or eight weeks, been so under the weather from 
ill health and hard work, that I could not bring myself to put 
pen to paper. * * * I have had plenty of profes- 

sional business this winter, but most of it is of slow growth, 
being of a litigated character, and calculated to last several 

years. 

We are all pretty well, though the children are complaining a 
good deal of colds, and Mary is troubled with an inflammation 
of the throat. Our weather has been horrid during the last few 
days— cold, raining, and occasionally freezing. I am delighted 
to hear that the health of your own family is so much improved. 
I long to hear of my dear mother's safe removal and pleasant 
settlement at Newark. I think it almost certain that I shall make 
a hasty trip to New York in July or August. I have some pro- 
fessional business which will probably require my attention a 
few days at Washington City, and if I go there it will be via 
Newark. I shall probably take one of the fine steamers from 
here to New York, but cannot now designate the time. 



546 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

I need not say how delighted we all were to get tidings of S, 
It did me good to hear he was in such fine health and spirits, 
and that the thirst for gold had not destroyed his humanity. 
S. was always kind and benevolent, and I have strong expecta 
Jions now that success will crown his laborious career. I had 
begun to feel strong misgivings as to his safety ; but safely 
arrived in California, in good health, I see nothing in the way 
of a prosperous result. 

I have neither strength nor spirits at present to say anything 
about politics, except that I think we shall pass safely through 
the crisis. "Webster's speech is a noble one, worthy of an 
American Senator ; but more another time. 

The news of Mr. Calhoun's death arriving about this time, 
Mr. Prentiss pronounced a warm-hearted eulogy upon his 
character. He was utterly opposed to some of the great 
South Carolinian's political doctrines, especially that of 
Nullification ; .but he took delight in rendering honor to his 
many noble qualities and the simple grandeur of his 
intellect. 

The latter part of April he was gratified by a highly 
flattering invitation from the '' Story Law Association," of 
Harvard University, to deliver their first Annual Address. 
" I can never forget," says Judge McCaleb, of the United 
States District Court, '' the feelings of gratified pride he 
expressed on the reception of that invitation, or the emo- 
tions of regret he betrayed at being compelled, by his feeble 
health, to decline it. Had his physical strength been ade- 
quate to the task, Petrarch, in the solitudes of Yaucluse, 
never responded with a prouder enthusiasm to the summons 
from the metropolis of the world, to receive in its capitol, 
and from the hands of a Senator of Rome, the laurel crown, 
as the reward of poetic merit, than would our gifted orator 
have obeyed the request of the members of his noble profes- 
sion in that ancient University. But the triumph of 



INVITATION FROM THE STORY LAW ASSOCIATION. 54T 

Petrarch was not reserved for our friend. His melancholy 
fate more solemnly reminds us of that other devoted child of 
Italian song, who had ' poured his spirit over Palestine/ 
and whose summons to the honors of the laurel wreath was 
but a summons to his grave." 

The following is an extract from the letter of invitation : 

In announcing this unanimous desire on the part of the Asso- 
ciation, allow me to present to your notice the objects which it 
has in view, namely, " to give the Institution a national 
character, to promote its general welfare, to revive the pleasing 
memories of legal study, to elevate the standard of the legal 
profession, and to purify it from all sectional and party feelings." 
We are the disciples of the great legal fathers, and would assist 
in adrainistering the law as we learn it from them, giving ta 
every citizen the rights belonging to him under the Consti' 
tution. 

You will meet a large number of young men from every State 
in the Union, and the members of the legal profession in Massa- 
chusetts ; and it will be the greatest gratification to them to 
hear the voice of him so well known in the capitol, and whose 
remarks on the death of Mr. Adams have not yet faded from 
their ears. 

On learning of his severe illness, the secretary wrote : 

The pre-eminent regard, in which you are held, caused the 
Story Law Association to hope they miglit have the pleasure of 
hearing your voice as Orator of their First Anniversary ; but 
the news of your ill-health has turned their expected joy into 
sadness. Hon. Daniel Webster has been chosen to deliver the 
Oration, and Hon. "Wra. Kent has accepted the Presidency.* 



* The pressure of public duties prevented Mr. Webster from delivering tbo 
address. His place, however, was well supplied by Mr. Choate, who pronounced 
an oration memorable alike for its high-toned, national sentiments, and for the 
rhetorical power and beauty with which they were expressed. — Ed. 



648 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

The following is the last of that long series of letters to 
his mother, which had run on now through more than a 
quarter of a century : 

Nkw Orleans, May 9, 1850. 

My Deaeest Mother : — 

I have been prostrated for three weeks by a severe 
attack of my old disease.* For ten days I have been lying on 
my back, unable to sit up, or scarcely to move. By the blessing 
of a kind Providence, I am now rapidly recovering, and in a few 
days shall, if I do not get a set-back, be entirely well. I attri- 
bute my attack to over-exertion in Court and exposure to the 
weather. I had been more or less affected by the disease all 
winter, but it was not so violent as to prevent my attention to 
business. Some very important cases, however, compelled me, 
during inclement weather, to attend Court many days in suc- 
cession, wliich, doubtless, aggravated the malady, and brought 
on the bad spell from which I am just recoveriug. I think it 
will do me good. I have not felt better for a year, and all I 
w^ant now is a little more strength. Day before yesterday was 
the first day I have been able to do anything. 

I have begged Mary to write you often, as I could not myself. 
So I suppose she has advised you of the progress of my attack. 
I was deliglited to learn of your safe arrival at Newark, and 
trust tliat you begin, by this time, to feel at home and to like 
the change. I think your move a most fortunate one, and can- 
not but believe you will be pleased with it. i 

At the earnest solicitation of her mother, Mary has concluded 
to give up our notion of spending the summer on the sea-shore, 
and will spend it at Longwood. In that event, I shall probably, 
in July, make a rapid trip to .the Virginia Springs, aUd try the 
waters for a short time. -. 

Give much love to Anna and Mr. Stearns and the children, 
also to William and his family. Eemember me kindly and 
affectionatelv to Miss E K . As soon as I get a little 



♦ Chronic dysertery.— Ed. 



rORRESFONDENCE. 549 

stronger, I will write you again. Id the meantime, I remain aa 
ever 

Your most affectionate and devoted son, 

S. S. Pbentiss. 

About three weeks later lie wrote to me, in a strong, dis> 
tinct hand, as follows. It was the last letter I ever received 
from him : 

New Orleans, Jwne 2, 1850. 
My Dear Brother : — 

I am — still thanks to a kind Providence — improv- ' 
ing rapidly in liealth, though more slowly than I could wish in 
strength. It is certainly a very strange disease. One feels per- 
fectly well, when the slightest imprudence throws everything 
aback, and one has to get well again from tlie beginning. I am 
dieting with great care ; I eat nothing but tea and dry toast, 
with occasionally a little bit of lamb or mutton. Pastry, fruit, 
especially ai'tples^ are mala proJiihita. For several days I have 
been entirely free from the disease, but am very weak and 
feeble ; I shall not recover my strength till I get away from this 
enervating climate. I am staying at the St. Charles Hotel. 
Mary and the children went up to Longwood ten days ago ; and, 
notwithstanding my weakness, my business in Court has kept 
me so busy during the time, that I have not been able to write 
you before. I believe I told you in my last how we had changed 
our plans, for the summer at least, and probably for next year. 
I have broken up housekeeping, and am going in for a general 
curtailment of expenses, to see if I cannot work out of debt. 
"What a jubilee I would have if I could once again stand forth 
and say, I owe no man a cent ! Well, I am going to strive for 
it. The rapid growth of our four beautiful children warns me 
that I must make some provision fur their education. "When 
Mary comes down in the winter to stay a month or so, I will 
take rooms. This arrangement will save from twa thousand 
live hundred to three thousand dollars a year. One or two 
years will be sonLething handsome. 



650 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

At Longwood, in the meautirae, they are all most delight- 
fully situated among fruits, flowers, solitude, and salubrity. 
Since poor M.'s death, Mrs. Williams has been continually 
urging Mary to come and live at Longwood, awhile at least.* 
The house is large and commodious, and I am making all sorts 
of improvements for them. I shall be able to spend at least half 
of my time with them, and Mary will pass part of the winter 
here with me. Of course I shall suifer most from this tempo- 
rary separation, but I cannot doubt it will be for the best. The 
children, especially, will grow up much more pure and healthy 
than it is possible for them to do among the little half-negro 
progeny of the Creoles of New Orleans. 

I hope to get my business arranged for the summer in the 
course of two or three weeks, when I shall go up to Longwood, 
spend a fortnight with my family, and then go direct to the Vir- 
ginia Springs. This course is advised by my physician, and I 
am inclined to think it best for restoring, what alone I now 
need, my strength. I shall strive to come on and take a fishing 
expedition, with you, though not as early as you wish. My love 
to your dear family, and believe me always 

Tour most affectionate brother, 

S. S. Prentiss. 

■ Love to Anna, William, and their families. Enclose this to 
mother. I intended writing her to-day, but it tires me so much, 
I will put it off two or three days. I think she may rely confi- 
dently on seeing me this summer. 

The final hour was now rapidly drawing near, and every 
thing seemed mercifully ordered to make ready for its 
advent. His wife, exhausted by heavy cares and incessant 

* " I would not wish you to see the last Daguerre he had taken. Death ia 
imprinted on his face. Alas ! I have seen its approaches for the last twelve- 
months, and tliis was one reason why I was so anxious they should break up at 
New Orleans and come here for the summer. I hoped the quiet and the country 
air might restore his health ; but, in any event, I desired we might J>e all together.^' 
— JSooiract from a Letter of Mrs. TF., dated,, Longwood^ July 29, 1860. 



% 
1' 



APPROACH OF THE FINAL HOUR. 55J 

vigils, had been persuaded by liim, sorely against her will, 
to precede him with the children to Longwood ; the trouble 
of moving was thus past, and several weeks of rest were 
secured to strengthen her for the death-bed ministration. 
Indeed, when all was over, it was impossible to look back 
and not be struck with the many circumstances which indi- 
cated the hand of a kind Providence arranging the whole 
matter from beginning to end. How our Heavenly Father 
loves to alleviate the terror and brighten the memory of 
His sharp afflictions, by the halo of goodness wherewith He 
often invests them ! 

After the departure of his family he continued his labors 
with an almost insane energy, replying playfully to the 
remonstrances of friends who urged him to leave at once : 
" Oh I but one cannot make a summer campaign North with- 
out ^ccw^w'^r^/ ammunition .'" And this answer was, in his case, 
no mere jest. " Amid the excitement of the forum," says 
Judge McCaleb, " he was unconscious of the rapid decay 
of the organs of life. Heedless alike of the solemn admoni- 
tions of friends, and the increased debility of an overtasked 
and broken constitution, he continued, day after day, to 
redouble his exertions, and seemed to regulate his physical 
action by the mighty energies of a mind that scorned all 
sympathy with the feeble frame on which it was dependent 
for support. One of the most important arguments made 
by him before this tribunal— I allude to that in the case of 
the heirs of Pultney vs. the City of Lafayette— was delivered 
from his seat, his declining health rendering it impossible for 
him to stand in the presence of the Court ; and yet I may 
with confidence appeal to his able and generous antagonist 
on that occasion, to bear testimony to the systematic 
arrangement and masterly ability with which every argu- 
ment, and all the learning that could tend to the elucidation 



552 ■ MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

of the important questions involved, were presented to the 

Court."* 

In the midst of this struggle with his mortal foe, ho 
did not omit the solemn offices of friendship. A gifted 
young gentleman, to whom he was warmly attached, and 
who is said to have strongly resembled him in many points 
of intellect and character, died at this time in New Orleans 
of the same disease with which he himself was afflicted. 
The last effort of his pen was a touching tribute to the 
memory of this friend. 

The following letters show how his heart yearned towards 
his wife and children, and how mindful he still was of what- 
ever concerned their happiness : 

New Obleans, Jv/ne 10, 1850. 

My Dearest Wife : — 

Mr. Hammet is going up to Lake Providence this 
evening on the Lowndes, and as " Old Joe " has just come over 
from the Pass, I send him up in Mr. H.'s charge. Mr. Hammet 
will not be able to stop, going or returning, for which I am 
sorry ; but I shall certaiDly get him to spend a few days, at 
least, at Longwood, before I go North. It rains hard to-day, 
and therefore I am not able to send up anything by Joe. The 
other servants are all well. 

I sent up quite a lot of things by Mr. K , which I trust 

arrived safe and are acceptable. The balance I will bring with 
me. I shall endeavor to get through my business this week, 
and come up on the Princess next Tuesday. I am still conva- 
lescing, and my health is as good as I could expect ; but I cannot 
get my strength, and suppose I shall not till I leave the city. I 



* " Mr. Prentiss, at the time of his death, stood in a peculiar relation to the 
citizens of Lafayette. He was leading counsel in the PouUney Claim, involving 
the title of a great part of the real estate of this city— a class of cases in which he 
had extraordinary success. He has left copious notes and an elaborate brief for 
his successor ; but no one can wear the armor of Achilles."— Zo/a^/^^^ (-^- <^-) 
Statesman. 



LETTERS. 553 

was never so anxious to leave a place in ray life. I long for 
country air, and rest, and you, and the children. I suppose I 
shall stay with you about three weeks. It is quite probable we 
8liall go up on the Bostona, which leaves here on the 5th of 
July, and will consequently leave Natchez on the 6th. 

I am having made a splendid awning of water-proof canvas. 
I haven't got the pony yet and may fail here, so David had 
better be looking out for one about Natchez. One the children 
must have. Let the cistern at the stable go on ; it is necessary, 
and therefore must be built. Kiss the dear children for papa, 
whose heart yearns towards them. I send love to all. God 
bless you, my dearest wife. 

Your affectionate and devoted husband, 

S. S. Peextiss. 



New Orleans, June 15, 1860. 

My Dearest Wife : 

I have got everything nearly ready now, and unless 
something unexpected occurs, shall leave on the Princess on 
Tuesday, and be with you on Thursday morning. You may send 
in the cart for baggage, but not the carriage, as I shall bring up 
the buggy. 

I have tried to get everything to make you comfortable, and 
think you will be pleased with some of my arrangements. We 
have had some fine rains here, which I hope have reached you, 
killed the gnats, and filled the cisterns. 

I feel finely to-day, better than I have for two weeks. The 
last two or three days, however, I was quite feeble, and did not 
leave my room at all. I shall revive when I get to Longwood. 
I am very anxious to "see you and the dear children, and look to 
two or three weeks of real enjoyment, before I go to Virginia. 
Did I tell you in my last that that fine, intelligent young friend 
of mine, Mr. Collins, of Lake Providence, died suddenly on 
Monday last ? Ilammet started the same day with the body for 
Providence, where his wife resides. He will be back to-day. I 
was much shocked at the event. 

I have not fonnd a pony yet ; if I do not, I will have one, if 

VOL. II. 24 



554 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

to be got in Adams county. The awning will be all ready to 
pnt up, so you had better be all ready for it. Much love to 

mother, and Mrs. , and all of you. Tell the children papa 

will soon be rolling over in tlie grass with them, God bless their 
little souls, how I long to see them ! 

Your affectionate and devoted husband, 

S. S. Prentiss. 

Towards the middle of June, as intimated in this letter, 
his malady returned with such violence as to create instant 
alarm among his friends, lest he should die before reaching 
his family. But, for several days, no entreaty could induce 
him to leave the city, or even to keep his bed. " I must 
work,^^ he said. " Why, good sirs, a man cannot lie in bed 
and make his living I" On the 11th or 12th he rose early, 
in a state of much weakness, and ordered his faithful servant 
Richard, to get the buggy and drive him round the city. 
They stopped at the French market, where he bought some 
plums, ate them, and then rode to his office. Here he soon 
had a violent fainting turn. " I got him some ice water," 
such is the substance of Richard's account, '' and rubbed 
him until he came to, and then took him to the St. Charles. 
As soon as he recovered a little, he seemed to throw it 
off, and talked and laughed just as he always did. That 
night he hardly slept at all. The next day be went 
to the Federal Court, and f^poke, I reckon, two hours. 
The court-room was very crowded. I stood where I could 
see him all the time. He did not look feeble while speak- 
ing ; the moment he began to speak he looked just like him- 
self. But when he got through, he fainted, and I took him 
to the St. Charles. After resting and bathing, he smoked 
a cigar, and then fainted again, and then he came to, and 
talked as pleasantly as if nothing was the matter. That 
night he got no sleep at all." 



KAPID DECLINE. 555 

The scene in Court is thus described by an eye-witness ;* 

" But a few days before leaving the city, his brilliant ora- 
tory and sparkling wit, like the last glimmerings of a bright 
light, shone in our court with their wonted effect, and elec- 
trified a large and delighted assemblage. It was on the ex- 
amination of Gen. Lopez before Judge McCaleb.f The 
pleasure afforded by his extraordinary versatility was tinged 
by the consciousness which pervaded the whole assemblage, 
that it would be his last effort in the exercise of his noble 
oratory ! It was indeed a melancholy sight, to see so power- 
ful an intellect, struggling with the decay of a body worn to 
the last stage of mortality. We felt that it would be the last 
opportunity we should have of gathering up for preserva- 
tion and recollection, the brilliant thoughts that he was 
accustomed to fling from him as profusely as the orient 
pearls with which Aurora "gemmed the earth." We 
therefore noted down all that fell from him, and recorded in 
this journal the only report of the last display of his re- 
markable oratory. We recur to that report with melan- 
choly feelings, but still with the pleasing associations which 
his eloquence and wit never failed to excite." 

On Sunday, the 16th, he had a violent recurrence of the 
disease, lost his pulse, and was, for some time, in a state re- 



* Mr. Walker, of the New Orleans Delta, whose rery beautiful and whole- 
hearted tribute to Mr. Pbentiss was all the more gracious for coming from a political 
opponent. 

t In 1849, on our return from the North, we stopped a day in the Port of Havana. 
Your brother then saw and heard a great deal of the miserable state of affairs in 
Cuba. He expressed a strong desire to have the island purchased from Spain. I 
was not in New Orleans when he defended Lopez, but I think he was inclined to 
regard him as sincere and a patriot. He had no patience, howerer, with the 
American adventurers who accompanied Lopez. Indeed, nothing could be more 
severe than the manner in which he used to condemn Filibustering, and all con- 
cerned in it.— Sxtract from a Letter, dated May 30, 1S55.— Ed. 



556 



MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 



Bembling the choleraic collapse, from which he was restored 
with extreme difficulty. In the course of the day, however, 
he was visited by an old friend, who found him in bed, but 
very cheerful, and with whom, for several hours, he con- 
versed upon various important subjects in a strain unusually 
animated and instructive. 

Monday he was compelled to keep his bed all day. He 
attempted once to ride to his office, and with great effort 
actually crept his way down stairs ; but before reaching the 
carriage, he fainted, and Kichard carried him again to his 
room. He slept well on Monday night, but Tuesday morn- 
ing found him exceedingly ill, the fainting turns being very 
severe. Yet even then his wonted cheerfulness and pleasant 
humor did not forsake him ; he seemed to look upon his case 
as a curiosity, a something apart from himself, and as one 
fatal symptom after another disclosed itself, he could not 
help moralizing upon it, or making it the occasion of sportive 
remark, somewhat in the mood of Hamlet at the grave of 
Yorick. 

On Tuesday morning he consented to abandon the thought 
of business and hasten to his family. Mr. Hammet, who 
had just returned from his sad errand to Lake Providence, 
made instant preparation for his departure. Mr. H. was an 
old Mississippi friend, having been for several years Editor 
of the Vickshurg Whig, and during Mr. Prentiss' protracted 
sickness in April, as also in the spring of 1849, had watched 
over him by day and night, with truly fraternal affection. To 
this gentleman, since deceased, and to Richard, his devoted 
servant, it was chiefly owing that he ever lived to reach 
Natchez. 

The moment the determination to stay and wind up his 
business was once broken — for he had remained and kept up 
by pure, indomitable force of will — his eagerness to get off 
was like that of a homesick child. The minutes were to 



IS CARRIED TO NATCHEZ. 657 

him as hours ; his mind seemed filled alone with the imasres 
of his absent wife and children, and the fear that he 
might never see them again. 

About five o'clock on Tuesday afternoon, he was borne to 
the steamer. "We saw him/' says the generous eulogist 
cited a moment ago, " on his way to the boat which bore 
him to [N'atchez, and as he passed a crowd of old friends, 
who were just then engaged in boisterous mirth, his dimmed 
eye and pallid face were lighted up with a momentary feel 
ing of genial friendship, and pleasing reminiscences. The 
glance was received by all present, as the farewell of their 
old friend, and there was not an eye that did not glisten 
with its tear, nor a heart but sank, at the melancholy ruin 
which his wasted frame presented, of one of the noblest 
intellects and most chivalrous characters the Almighty ever 
bestowed upon the human form. It was our last view of 
Prentiss." 

" As he was too weak to ride in a carriage," writes 
another friend, " a mattress was placed on a covered wagon 
for him to lie upon, and Dr. McCormack, I think, took 
the reins. A few of his friends walked down to the boat, 
taking care, however, not to follow the wagon. But we felt 
as if we were attending his funeral. Upon reaching the 
wharf he was earried on board in an arm-chair. Just as he 
reached the gangway, his eye caught mine from his elevated 
position ; instantly his countenance brightened, and casting 
on me a smile, with a graceful inchnation of his head 
towards me, he asked, ' Any motions to make, gentlemen V 
I followed him on board, and took leave of him in his state- 
room. He was then so much debilitated that we feared he 
would not live to see Xatchez." * 

And now, if the reader is not weary of this sad story, 

• 

* Garrett Duncan, Esq. 



558 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

let him follow the chacging scene to Longwood, and see it 
quickly draw to a close. A description of the final act 
requires little more than brief extracts from letters written 
at the time or shortly after. 

Longwood, June 20, 1850. — I snatch a moment, whilst your 
brother sleeps, to inform you of his arrival here, but regret to 
say how very feeble he is. As we were sitting on the gallery 
last night, General Stark, a friend of his, came up on the steps 
and said, " Mr. Peentiss will be here soon ; he has been very ill." 
Just then the carriage drove slowly up, and we had a large chair 
taken out, brought him into the house and put him to bed. He 
was so glad to get here, and to see me once more ; at one time he 
said he thought he would never see me again. He was taken 
very ill last Sunday, but after hard rubbing came to, and Mr. 
Ham met, accompanied by Gen. Stark and Dr. Cross, left with 
him Tuesday evening and reached here last night about 8 o'clock. 

Mr. H. says, he longed exceedingly to get here, begging them 
to " take him home." I never saw him so low. He seems 
better to-day than he was yesterday ; for the change is so agree- 
able to him. The flowers, the birds, and the pure air revive 
him.* But the disease still goes on, and keeps me in the 
deepest anxiety of mind. He won't be able to leave here, I fear, 
this summer. "We never can be grateful enough to Mr. H. for 
all his kindness, but God will reward him. He has gone back to 
the city, but promises to pay us a visit soon. He will write you 
fully as soon as he reaches New Orleans. I would give anything . 
to see you. Write often and pray for us. 

June 21. — I wrote the above yesterday, and kept it to add a 



* I omitted to mention how his passion for flowers returned during his sickness. 
The night of his arrival, though he was so very ill, and had nearly died on the boat, 
he requested Mrs. C. to gather half a bushel of roses, with the dew on them, which 
he had put in a large basin, and the stand placed by his bedside. He then expa- 
tiated to every one on their beauty, and the delight their fragrance and the sight 
of them gave him. Jeanie and Geordie frequently strew his grave with flowers, 
because their poor papa loved flowers. They never see one without expressing a 
wish thus to appropriate it. —Letter from. Mrs. W. dated Longwood, Jul'!/29, 1860. 



EXTRACTS FROM LETTERS. 55i 

few lines this morniDg. I am happy to say that your brother is 
better to-day, but still very, very feeble. I can hardly hear a 
word he says, his voice is so weak ; and he is very thin. I was 
80 shocked at the change in him, for when I left he was doing 
well, and in the last letter I got from him, he said he was better 
than he had been for several weeks. He has the best medical 
advice, Dr. Sydney Smith staying with us day and night. 
Mamma and Mrs. 0. take the children off my hands, so that 
I can devote myself wholly to him. He has every comfort and 
convenience here, and his room filled with flowers all day long. 
He says he will be up and riding in a day or two. 

LoNGWOOD, June 23. — He is a little better to-day, though as 
feeble as ever. He can hardly speak, and is so nervous that he 
can't bear the least noise. Thursday he was a little better, and 
a great many of his friends came to see him, and kept him so 
much excited — Thursday and Friday — that Friday night I thought 
he would hardly live till morning. So yesterday I allowed no 
one to see him, except his physicians, and he is better, as I have 
said, though still very low. 

June 29. — The chance in his favor has slightly increased since- 
yesterday ; but he is just hovering between life and death. That 
be still hves, is beyond all hope or expectation ; we know not 
what an hour may bring forth. All that mortal aid can do we 
have done ; the rest remains with our Heavenly Father, who 
wills and directs all things in wisdom.* We have only to watch 
and pray that this blow may be spared us. In his wildest 



* The hand of God has been laid heavily upon me ; I acknowledge it, I feel it, 
and trust it is in love. I thank Him for all His mercies, mingled with this aflaiction ; 
that my child and her children were safely removed here, and that your brother 
was permitted to reach us and to die among friends such as, surely, never mortal 
man had befofe ! It would be vain to describe their affectionate solicitude or their 
kindness. We had to decline innumerable offers. David, Col. Bingaman, Mr. 
Shields, Gen. Huston, Mr. Evans, the whole S. family, my sister's family, the Sar- 
jents, his physicians, Dr. Smith, and Dr. Metcalf, scarcely left tlie house. If human 
Aid could have availed, he would have been spared.— Xe^r //-oro Mrs. W., daUd 
Longwood, July 29, 1850. 



560 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRENTISS. 

moments he fancies his mother and the rest of you are present, 
addresses aud takes leave of you all ; at other times, he tells 
Mary to write you that he is dying. 

July 1. — My mother has written to you several times since I 
last wrote, for my heart was too full to write, and I have been 
constantly engaged night and day. It is one week to-day since he 
became delirious, and, excepting lucid intervals, he has continued 
so up to this time. * * * At first his mind was 
full of his business; he talked about his suits, raising money, 
and his children ; feeling, I suppose, that he was leaving them 
destitute, and trying to think wliat he could do to provide 
for them. He called me several times and told me to " be 
sure and do it ;" but I could not learn what he was alluding to. 
Yesterday I tliought he would die every moment, but last even- 
ing he took some nourishment, and has slept we^l all night. He 
is still asleep, and we can't tell how he will awake. I pi-ay and 
trust that he may be refreshed by this long sleep, and awake 
himself; but I fear I am hoping tt)0 much, and am willing to 
leave all in the hands of God. — Mark, xiv. 36. 

He has called for you all by name again and again during his 
illness, particularly for his mother. " Dear mother, do you love 
met'''' he would say; and "dear, dear mother" has been con- 
stantly on his lips. Her -early instructions, and her prayers, 
were, no doubt, in his mind. He has also called repeatedly 
upon God. One day when he was very low, and much dis- 
tressed at the idea of death, I urged him to go to the Saviour, 
and repeated to him many sentences from the Bible ; but he 
said God would never forgive him, that I did not know how 
wicked he had been, I told him only to repent and believe in 
the Lord Jesus Christ, and " though his sins were as scarlet they 
should he white as snoic^ This seemed to quiet his fear. I 
begged him to pray, and asked him if he didn't remember how 
his mother used to teach him ? He said, " Oh,3^es," and desired 
me to pray with him ; and I then repeated to him the Lord's 
Prayer. Several times he has said, " Amen, Amen," as if he 
were praying. Yesterday I heard him saying, as if to himself, 



CONCLUSION. 561 

*' Oh God^ tU Son /" recalling, I suppose, the petition in the 
Litany,* 

We are all now watching, hoping, praying and trembling for 
him to awake. God grant that all may be right with him ! 

From the moment of his arrival until this sleep, even in 
the height of delirium, his expressions of love and devotion 
to his faithful wife, were indescribably touching. He could 
not bear her out of his sight for an instant ; his eyes would 
follow her wistfully about the room, and if he could not see 
her, he would rise up in bed and call her loudly by name, 
until she came. From her hands alone would he take either 
medicine or nourishment, and the thought of dying and 
leavino; her, several times threw him into convulsions of 
grief. 

Mary ! was the last word he ever uttered. It was on 
Sabbath evening. -She went to him, and, sitting up in 
bed, he kissed her, gave her a sweet smile, and begged her 
to sit at the foot, instead of the side of the bed, so that he 
might see her the moment he should awake. He then sank 
back into a gentle infant-like slumber, which grew deeper and 
deeper, until, on .Monday evening, July 1, a little before 
seven o'clock, without a sigh or a groan, it changed into the 
mysterious sleep of the grave ! 

The same hands that had so tenderly ministered to him 
while living, closed his eyes in death ; and on Tuesday his 
mortal part was committed to the earth, dust to dust, in a 
quiet rural spot on the family grounds at Longwood. It is 
almost within sight of the majestic river which bore him to 
Natchez, a limping boy, and whose resistless current sym- 
bolized so well the manly energy and power of his eloquence. 
The burial service was solemnized by the Right Rev. W. M. 



* God the Son, Redeemer of the World; have mercy upowua miser aUa 
sinners I 

VOL II. 24* 



562 MEMOIR OF S. S. PRRNTISS, 

Green, Bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church of Mis- 
sissippi, in the presence of a large assemblage, whose tears 
watered the grave of him whom all loved and whom all 
admired. 

The reader will find elsewhere some friendly notices of 
Mr. Prentiss' life and character, and of the great sorrow 
caused by his death. But there was that about him which 
no words can depict ; and those who loved him most — whe- 
ther in the laud of his birth or of his adoption — will never 
cease to exclaim, as they remember his living form ani 
presence : 

The rainbow comes and goes, 

And lovely is the rose, 

The moon doth with delight 

Look round her when the heavens are bare 

Waters on a starry night 

Are beautiful and fair ; 

The sunshine is a glorious birth ; 

But yet I know, where'er I go, 

That there hath past away a glory from the earth. 

WoaDSWOBTI. 



I 



APPENDIX. 



-<•►- 



Soon after the death of Mr. Prentiss, impressive tributes were 
ph.id to his memory by the Bars of Louisiana and Mississippi. 
The press, too, especially in the Southwest, contained very 
friendly and heartfelt obituary notices. Here follows a selection 
from these various tributes. The proceedings of the Bars of 
New Orleans, Jackson, and Natchez, are given entire, a few 
nlight omissions being made in the speeches only. 

PROCEEDINGS OF THE BAR OP NEW ORLEANS. 

According to the short notice given only in the papers of the morning, a large 
number of the Lar assembled at the Supreme Court room on Saturday, July 6. 
J. P. Benjamin moved that Christian Roselius be requested to act as Chairman, 
and John Finney as Secretary. Mr. Roselius made a brief, but impressive speech, 
wuen he was followed by Judge BuUard, the oldest member present, who prefaced 
a motion to appoint a committee to draw up resolutions, with the following beautiful 
and touching eulogy on the character of his deceased friend : 

Mr. Presid€7it and Gentlemen /—It would have been more appropriate if some 
younger man than myself — some one more nearly of the same age with our lamented 
brother, had been called to address you on the melancholy occasion of our meeting. 
I am old enough to have been his father, and yet there have existed between us for 
the last twenty years the kind and cordial relations of brothers. I have passed 
that age from which alone would be expected the fervor and eloquence suited to 
this occasion, and worthy of the deceased. From me, you can expect nothing 
more than the unpremeditated tribute of a heart full of the subject, dictated by a 
friendship of long duration and a deep and ardent admiration of the remarkable 
abilities and worth of the deceased, as a man and a Lawyer. 

When I fipet became acquainted with Prentiss, more than twenty years ago, he 
was a mere youth just emerging from the humble condition of a schoolmaster at 
Natchez. A few partial friends and generous Mississippians, discovering in him 
indicatioas of uncommon endowments, had encouraged him to adopt the law as his 



564 APPENDIX. 

profession. And here let me say to you, gentlemen, that the schoolmaster is as it 
were the chrysalis form of the great men — the eminent Lawyers and Statesmen of 
New England. Before they expand their wings and develop their full powers and 
energies, they for the most part have passed through that condition— imparting in- 
struction while at the same time they are drawing in those copious stores of know- 
ledge and practising that patient and laborious system of research, which renders 
them great in after life. Need I mention names? I would rather ask who has not 
been at some period of his life a schoolmaster, from the time of John Adams down 
to the present day. I myself learned the first rudiments of letters from a man 
who became afterwards the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of New Hamp- 
shire, and my younger brothers were taught at one time by no less a man than the 
present distinguislied Judge Woodbury of the Supreme Court of the United States. 
Prentiss passed through this severe mental ordeal and soon emerged into active 
life, a brilliant genius and an accomplished scholar. It was not long before the re- 
nown of his oratory blazed through the whole country, and his reputation as an 
advocate became co-extensive with the Republic. 

lie was a native of the State of Maine — the most northern part of the Union. 
Reasoning a priori^ one would naturally suppose he would have possessed merely 
an understanding and judgment as solid and compact as the granite of her hills, 
and a temperament as cold as her climate. Who would have expected to find in a 
child of Maine, the fiery, inventive genius of an Arabian poet? — an imaginatio« as 
fertile in original and fantastical creations, as the author of the thousand and one 
nights? Let us not imagine that nature is so partial in the distribution of her 
gifts. The flora of more Southern climes is more gorgeous and variegated, but 
occasionally there springs up in the cold North, a flower of as delicate a perfume 
as any within the tropics. The heavens in the equatorial regions are bright with 
the golden radiance, and the meteors shoot with greater effulgence through the air 
— but over the snow-clad hills of the extreme North, flash from time to time the 
glories of the Aurora Borealis. Under the line are found more numerous volca- 
noes, constantly throwing up their ashes and their flames, but none of them excel 
in grandeur the Northern Hecla, from whose deep caverns roll the melted lava 
down its ice-bound sides. 

I think I can assert with confidence, that Prentiss possessed the most brilliant 
imagination of any man of this day. He had more of the talent of the Italian 
improviscitore than any man living, or who ever lived in this country. It is a great 
error to suppose that he was a mere declaimer. On the contrary, there was found 
always at the bottom a solid basis of deep thought. He never preached without a 
text. Even on convivial occasions, when he gave full rein to his fancy, his oratory 
consisted of something more than merely gorgeous imagery, sparkling wit and bril- 
liant periods. He sought to illustrate some great truth. He was not satisfied with 
stringing together a few smart sentences and common-place remarks, but that rich 
profusion of brilliant metaphors, which he threw out on such occasions, tended to 
illustrate some great, important principle. Such was his remarkable gift of throw- 
ing an attractive beauty over every subject upon which his imagination lighted, 
that under his hand a truism became a novelty. 

As a lawyer, I can testify that Prkntiss was diligent— even indefatigable in his 
researches. His arguments were always solid and thorough. It has, indeed, been 
sometimes objected that he pressed his arguments beyond conviction. He never 
di-ove a nail that he did not clinch it, and, sometimes, perhaps, by clinching it too 






APPENDIX. 665 

tight, broke oflf the head. For it is, permit me to say, sometimes the fault of law- 
yers of great inteLictual vigor and fertility of imagination, that they push an ar- 
gument so far as to produce the impression that their own convictions are not 
altogether sincere and satisfactory to themselves. But Pkentiss possessed the pecu- 
liar faculty of rendering every subject which he treated attractive and interesting. 
"When he attended the courts in the country, and it was given out that he was to 
speak, he was sure to attract a large audience of ladies and gentlemen. I remem- 
ber a case in the Supreme Court in the Western District in which he was engaged. 
The court-house was crowded, and a large number of ladies graced the room. It 
was a simple case of usury, which most of us would have argued by reference to a 
few abjudicated cases and upon general principles. In the hands of Prentiss it 
became a prolific theme for the richest imagery, and the most striking novel illus- 
trations; Sliylock became ten times more hideous and revolting in his picture of 
the modern usurer, while at the same time he argued the legal questions involved 
with singular vigor and acuteness. Indeed, there was no subject so dry— no chasm 
so deep, but he could span it over with the rainbow of his imagination — a rainbow 
in which the most varied hues were beautifully commingled in one gorgeous arch of 
light. 

The fame of such a man could not be narrowed down to the limits of a single 
State, or section of our country. It extended over the Union. It shone with splen- 
dor in the Halls of Congress, in other cities and States, and wherever he passed, 
he was called on to address the people upon the great topics of the day. Even in 
Faneuil Hall, I have been assured, Faneuil Hall, whose walls re-echoed the first cry 
of Liberty and Independence— where the greatest ora^-s of their day thundered 
forth their noblest efforts— where the impassioned eloquence of the elder, and the 
Bilvery tones of the younger Otis, had been uttered— where the Dexters, the Ever- 
etts, and Choate, and Webster, and others had maintained their ascendency over 
that cool, reflecting and intellectual people— even there, when Prentiss appeared 
and poured forth the torrent of his gorgeous elocution, his auditors sprang to their 
feet under the influence of his magic power. 

I have heard most of the eminent men of the day, and can freely say that I have 
never heard any man .who combined in so eminent a degree, the reasoning faculty 
with brilliancy of fancy, felicity of language, and copiousness of illustration. 
There are undoubtedly more learned men, more perfect scholars and rhetoricians — 
more skilled in polishing a sentence and taming a metaphor ; but none from whom 
rolled forth, as it were spontaneously, such brilliant thought, and startling and 
novel figures. In this respect his speeches resembled the displays of the skillful 
pyrotechnist— his metaphors, thrown up like rockets in the evening sky, and burst- 
ing as they rose into a thousand dazzling points of every imaginable color. 

But, gentlemen, I fear I shall weary your patience— that I am becoming garru- 
lous. I hardly knew how to begin, and now I know not how to finish, the theme is 
so attractive and inexhaustible. 

What can I say of the noble qualities of his heart ? Who can describe the charms 
of his conversation in moments of relaxation and social intercourse? Old as T am, 
his society was one of ray greatest pleasures. I became a boy again. His conver- 
sation resembled the ever-varying clouds that cluster round the setting sun of a 
summer evening— their edges fringed with gold, and the noiseless and harmless 
flashes of lightning spreading, from time to time, over their dark bosoms. Who 
would have thought that I, whose career is ended— that I, whose sands are fast 



566 APPENDIX. 

dropping away — that I, with my age and phyaical infirmities — I, whose children bo 
longer require a father's solicitude, should have survived to pay this feeble tribute 
to hia memory, while he, the young, the noble-hearted, the gifted — in the fullnesa 
of his fame and usefulness — sinks into an enrly grave, and leaves behind him a 
youthful and pious wife, and four orphan children, to weep for his loss. How in- 
Bcrutable are the ways of Providence I 

And here let me say, that I thank the editors of the Delta most heartily for the 
just and eloquent eulogium, published in their late number, upon the virtues and 
the genius of the lamented deceased. It does equal credit to the head and the heart 
of the author, and is one of the most touching and eloquent effusions I have ever 
read. It furnishes a proof of what I was about to say, that the talents and virtues 
of Mr. Prentiss were equally appreciated, and he was equally esteemed and beloved 
by every political party or coterie in society. 

Gentlemen, it is the fate of great improvisator, that though they exercise a 
powerful influence over their contemporaries, and their fame is brilliant and ex- 
tended in their day, they leave behind them but few and faint memorials of their 
greatness and their genius. Such is eminently the case with Patrick Henry and 
Seargest S. Prentiss. The eflFect of their eloquence lives mainly in the memory of 
those who enjoyed the rare happiness of hearing them. Very little remains of all 
the powerful displays of Patrick Henry, except the meagre sketch of a speech or 
two preserved by his biographer. How many brilliant efifusiors we have all he£:rd 
from Prentiss, of which there is no permanent record, and which must pass away 
with the memories of those who listened to them. Permit ma to allude to one occa- 
sion which many of you n^y remember, and which illustrates this remark. Some 
years ago, a public meeting was called at Dr. Clapp's Church, with a view to raise 
a subscription to procure a statue of Franklin, to be executed by the great Ameri- 
can artist, Hiram Powers. The occasion called forth all the eloquence and stores 
of erudition of Richard Henry Wilde, then fresh from the classic scenes of Italian 
art. It happened that Prentiss hud just arrived in the city, without any knowledge 
of such a meeting. He was dragged into the chiu'ch by some of his friends, and, 
to avoid observation, took his seat in a side aisle. As soon as Mr. Wilde had 
closed, there was a cry for Prentiss, Prentiss! He came forward, obviously sur- 
prised and embarrassed, but, warming with the theme as he advanced, proceeded 
to pour forth to an enchanted audience one of the most brilliant and remarkable 
bursts of eloquence, which, I venture to assert, ever fell from any individual so 
suddenly and unexpectedly called on.* A stranger would have supposed that he 

* The following is taken from the AT. O. Ficayune, of J vHy 9,1850. The letter 
was wri^tten by the Rev. Theodore Clapp. — Ed. 

Oratoiy of the Late S. S. PRENTISS. 

The following letter, by a gentleman remarkable for his own powers of mind and 
discriminating taste, revives the recollection of one of those extemporaneous ad- 
dresses with which the late S. S. Prentiss used to electrify his hearers whenever he 
was prevailed upon to speak in public on any theme. It is doubtless as faithfully 
recorded as an accurate memory would allow, and presents truly the train of thought 
and illustration, but it was always impossible for pen to follow him in the soaring 
flights of his imagination, the exuberant beauty of liis imagery, the fire of his genius, 
or the depth and tenderness of his pathos. We doubt whether he could have 
reported himself justly, even if he had had patience to attempt it. Hence the bril- 
liant thoughts which he threw out with such careless profusion, and which corus- 
cated so incessantly wheuever he spoke, were seldom caught aud retained. They 



APPENDIX. 567 

had done nothing during his life, but study the poetg and the fine arts, and was 
familiar with the best models. He exhibited on that occasion an extraordinary 
familiarity with the poets and the arts, and no one would have supposed he had 



live only in the memory of the effect which they produced, in swaying the hearts 
and controlling the actions of others with absolute mastership, and in the universal 
acknowledgment that he had no peer or rival as an orator. His fame, alas, must 
be traditional ; for of all his great efforts that have so charmed and convinced list- 
ening crowds, till the rapt soul feasting on the harmonies that issued from his lips, j 
became insensible to the lapse of time, as though they were " lapped in Elysium," 
nothing remains but skeletons from which the life has flown. One who could restore 
to us a speech of Prentiss such as he delivered it, reviving the marvellous effect 
upon his hearers, would be entitled to public gratitude. We are thankful, too, to 
any one who, like our correspondent, is able to reproduce detached passages which 
preserve something of the fertility and power of the departed orator. 

New Orleans, July S, 1S50. 

To the Editors of the Picayune :— Judge Bullard, in his speech on the character 
of the late S. S. Prentiss, published in the Delta of the 7th inst., refers to a meeting 
which was held some years ago, in the First Congregational Church, to devise 
measures for procuring a statue of Franklin. I was present on that occasion, and 
can testify to the correctness of the picture so ably sketched in the beautiful eulo- 
gium pronounced by Judge Bullard. After retiring to my room on the evening 
above alluded to, I set down in a note-book some reminiscences of the concluding 
part of Mr. Pkentis.s's address. Though I am aware that they must sound tame and 
frigid to those who had the good fortune to be present on that occasion, yet, it ia 
possible, that their perusal may be interesting to some friends of the deceased, who 
are acquainted with that brilliant and remarkable display of oratory by report 
only. I can convey no adequate idea of the original. "To have caught up its 
brilliant scintillations would have been as difficult as to have snatched the meteors 
as they shoot athwart the sky." What I could call to mind of the peroration just 
referred to was recorded as follows : 

" Ladies and Gentlemen— "Yhe most splendid cities, mausoleums and pyramids 
must crumble to dust, but the genius embodied in the picture and the statue and the 
literary page is like the mind of man endued with immortality. The physical forma 
of Greece and Rome flitted across the horizon like the shadows of a cloud passing 
over a verdant field in a summer's afternoon ; but the productions of her heaven- 
born artists still live and hold a preeminent place in the admiration of the civilized 
world. They will go down on an accumulating tide of glory to succeeding genera- 
tions, even to the last recorded syllable of time. 

' Hail spirits, born in happier days ; 
Immortal heirs of universal praise ; 
Whose honors with increase of ages grow. 
As streams roll down, enlarging as they flow ; 
Nations unborn your mighty names shall sound, 
And worlds applaud that must not yet be found !' 

"The Pantheon of Greece was filled with the creations of immortal genius. Its 
deities were the same beings whom genuine poets of every clime and land see in 
their day-dreams on the ocean's rocky shores, or by the gurgling fountain, or in the 
shady grove, or on the mountain's craggy steep, or along the gentle stream mean- 
dering through the sweetest charms of rural scenery. Her statues, paintings and 
poetry have kindled the imagination and touched the hearts of all cultivated ages 
and nations to the present day. Her mission was to inspire the human race with a 
profound, eternal admiration of the great, good and l)eautiful. The visions of love- 
liness which she delineated can never fade, because they are true to nature, and 
consequently secure to her an illustrious and deathless name. 

"As a Republic, we possess all the advantages of civil and religious freedom. 
We have the means and appliances of a boundless physical prosperity. But the 
American people especially require a more acute perception and lively enjoyment 
of the refining, and endlessly diversified beauties of nature and art. These would 
emancipate them from the domini:)n of those gross, sensual indnlgencies, which s« 



568 APPENDIX. 

ever read a law book in his life. And yet, of that speech there remains not the 
slightest vestige. It could not, indeed, have been well reported. To have caught 
up its brilliant scintillations would have been as difficult as to sketch the meteors 
that shoot through the sky. Indeed, I may say that if all the great and brilliant 
thoughts that fell from Prentiss in popular and deliberative assemblies, in courts 
of justice, at convivial parties, and in his social intercourse, could have been faith- 
fully reported by a stenographer, it would form a work truly Shakespearean. 
Tliere would be found beautifully blended, the broad humor of Falstaflf, the keen 
wit of Mercutio, the subtlety of Hamlet, and the overwhelming pathos of Lear, 

But, alas ! the wand of Prospero is broken. We shall no more hear the eloquent 
tones of hitt Vi/ice, nor admire the specious miracles produced by the inspiration of 
his genius ; for he possessed the only inspiration vouclisafed to man in these latter 
days. We shall no longer be permitted to laugh over his mirth -provoking wit, nor 
be melted by his touches of true feeling — nor admire those rich gems which he 
threw out with such profusion fi-om the exhaustless stores of his imagination. Such 
is the destiny of all earthly things — 

" The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, 
The solemn temples — the great globe itself, 
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, 
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, 
Leave not a rack behind." 

It is deeply to be lamented, gentlemen, that while through a prostituted press, the 
penny literature of the day is likely to engross the minds and imaginations of the 
rising generation, the elevated and noble sentiments and the brilliant expressions 

extensively prevail in the United States, under the name of amusements or neces- 
sary recreations. Our sons, familiarized from childhood with the exquisite miracles 
of superior genius, would grow up enabled to comprehend and feel the loveliness 
and grandeur that pervade the whole creation, and which in vain court the notice 
of the illiterate and vulgar. In the training of youth, nothing is more important 
than to excite in them a lively relish for the entertainments of taste. A cultivated 
sensibility to the elegant and grand, is, of itself, almost sufficient to inspire a young 
man with the noble spirit of patriotism, a passion for true glory, a contempt for all 
that is mean in principle and conduct, and a profound admiration of everything 
truly great, immaculate and illustrious. Let it be remembered, also, that the en- 
joyments which arise from a delicate perception of the beautiful, are congenial with 
the tenderest and holiest sentiments of religion, and are a foretaste of that refined, 
unimaginable bliss that awaits the good in the fair and glorious mansions of immor- 
tality. Let us rest assured then, ladies and gentlemen, that by fm-thering the oljject 
for which this meeting is called, we shall at least contribute our mite towards the 
promotion of that social refinement, peace, order and morality that are indispen- 
sably necessary to perpetuate our civil and religious libefties." 
. A3 this memorandum was made at the time and on the spot, it maybe relied upon 
as a tolerably faithful account of the ideas contained in the concluding part of Mr. 
Prentiss's address on tlie above-mentioned occasion. The writer did not attempt 
to give a sample of his inimitable style. The orator was most modest and unpre- 
tending in his manner. He appeared to be quite unconscious of the effect which he 
was ijroducing on the minds of his audience. His periods of ardent and glowing 
diction, his rich, original and beautiful figures, flowed from him without effort. He 
seemed to speak from the impulse of some superior power that he could not resist. 
I have listened to the most distinguished orators on both sides of the Atlantic, but 
never before or since witnessed an oi ♦burst of such profound original and impres- 
sive eloquence. 

Yours, Ac. 



APPENDIX. 569 

of such a mind should be lost to the world and have no permanent and tangible 
form. 

In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, I move that a committee be appointor, to draft 
resolutions, expressive of the feelings of the bar on tliis occasion.* 

The Chair then appointed the following gentlemen on said committee: Messrs. 
H. A. EuUard, R. N. Ogden, and J. C. Larue, who retired and afterwards reported 

the following resolutions : 

The committee appointed at a public meeting of the Bench and Bar of New Orleans 
to prepare resolutions expressive of their ftelings on the melancholy occasion of 
the death of the Hon. Seargest S. Prentiss, respectfully report — 

That this sudden and lamentable event has covered the whole community with 
gloom ; and is a general calamity and a public bereavement. That the illustriuus 
deceased, although but for a few years one of our bar, had become entirely identi- 
fied with us, and was of us ; and we mourn him as a lost, and loved, and honored 
brother — and that feeling it due alike to his great worth and to our duty to place on 
permanent record a respectful tribute to his memory, we resolve — 

1. That the Bench and the Bar of New Orleans, and the whole legal profession, 
have sustained a great and an irreparable loss in the death of their lamented 
brother, the Hon, Seargent S Prentiss. 

2. That his urbanity of deportment, his generosity of disposition, his childlike 
simplicity of manners, his genial kindness and gentleness in every act and word 
of private intercourse, endeared him to all who knew him, and made them forget 
in that intercourse the towering genius which so often commanded their admira- 
tion. 

3. That as a forensic orator he was unrivalled in the versatility of his powers, in 
the richness and vigor of his fancy, in the range and readiness of his illustrations, 
in his wit, and humor, and pathos, and in a rare combination with these brilliant 
gifts of a remarkable power of logical analj'sis, and legal acumen. 

4. That although he came to tliis State in the maturity of his fame as an advo- 
cate, from one in which a system of law totally differing from our own prevailed, 
and subjected himself to an ordeal always dangerous and often fatal to distinguished 
reputations, we his brethren and competitors take pleasure and pride in bearing 
our testimony to his eminent and distinguished success in reaching at a very early 



* The reader will perceive that Judge Bullard fell into the error, before-mentioned, 
of supposing that Mr. P. was induced to study law by friends in Natchez. Judge 
B. writes, under date of Washingthn, January 25, lS5i : " I rejoice to learn that you 
are engaged in the pious task if writing tlie memoirs of your late nmcli-Ioved 
brother. * * I am liajtpy also to li-arn from you that the off-hand effusion of 
mine, addressed witliout preparation to the Bar of New Orleans, was accej)taljle to 
the family «{ my departed friend. I felt every word I uttered. There was some 
similarity in the early fortunes of n>J^■^elf and your hrother. Both left his native 
home in early life to better our condition ; e.ich begun as a teacher, and adojited 
the same profession ; an<l although I was twenty years, p(;rhai)S, his senior in age, 
we were thrown a good deal together for many years befoi'e his death. I am sensi- 
ble tliat on the occasion referred to, I neither did full justice to liini nor to my.icK." 

Judge Bullard was, I tliink, a native of New Hampshire, and a gentleman of high 
literary and social ciiltm-e. After retiring from the I'.eneh, he occupied one of the 
Law Professorships in the University of Louisiana; and at the tii/ie of his death, 
was a Kepresentative in Congress from that State. — Ed. 



670 APPENDIX. 

period a station in the front rank of the profession here, and in doing full justice 
to the jxpectations created by his former brilUant career. 

6, That it would be unjust to speak of him only as a lawyer ; and that a profea- 
Bion which has at all times furnished the foremost champions of free and liberal 
principles, may justly be proud of him as a patriot, as a statesman of enlarged 
views, as a fearless advocate of what he deemed the right, and that the lines of a 
great poet to whom he bore a remarkable intellectual resemblance, applied to a 
distinguished English orator, may with singular truth be applied to him. 

" His eloquence brightening whatever it tried, 

Whether reason or fancy, the gay or the grave ; 
Was as rapid, and deep, and brilliant a tide, 
As ever bore freedom aloft on its wave." 

6. That the Attorney General be requested to present a copy of the proceedings 
of this meeting to the Supreme Court, at the opening of the next term, and move, 
on behalf of the bar, that they be spread upon the minutes of the Court. 

7. That a committee of five be appointed by the Chair to transmit a copy of these 
proceedings to the widow of the deceased, and express in suitable terms our deep 
aud respectful sympathy and condolence. 

The following committee was then appointed to communicate a copy of said reso- 
lutions with a letter of condolence to the wife of Mr. Prentiss, viz : Messrs. G. B. 
Duncan, J. P. Benjamin, W. W. King, E. A. Bradford and W. L. Poindexter. 

It was then moved in respect to the memory of the deceased that the members 
of the bar wear the usual badge of mourning for thirty days. 

The meeting then adjourned. 

Here follow a few passages from the ai'ticle in the New 
Orleans Delta^ alluded to by Judge BuUard : 

One of the most gifted men this country ever produced has fallen in the very 
meridian of his genius and usefulness ! Seajigest S. Prentiss is no more ! 
****** 

A weak and debilitated boy, with gentle lisp, and suppoi-ted by a sustaining cane, 
was soon seen stealing away the technical hearts of stern judges, and weaving 
seductive tales in the honest ears of sworn jurymen. Resistless as the penetrating 
breeze, his juvsnile eloquence searched every avenue of thought and feeling. The 
cl.-issic page, and the varied mass of modern literature were conveniently stored 
away in the massy caverns of his broad and fertile intellect. A close train of 
didactic reasoning on the most abstruse legal topic, was lit up with the pyrotechnic 
fires of fancy. The most ordinary incidents of life, the merest common-places, 
Were caught up on the wings of his imagination and blended and effectively com- 
min^'led, in his illustrative oratory, with the boldest and most gorgeous metaphors. 

With such talents, it will excite no surprise that he met with the most brilliant 
success at the bar. Located at Vicksburg, almost at one bound he leaped into the 
very highest position at the bar of Mississippi. 

Few men in this country have ever risen more rapidly, or sustained themselvei 
more successfully. Of Mr. Prentiss' career as a politician, we need not speak— IK 



APPEITOIX. 611 

vill be found in the history of the country. His speeches in Congress secured him 
the naost extended reputation as an orator. But, in truth, he had no taste for poli- 
tical life. He soon returned to his favorite arena — the bar — and resumed his 
splendid practice. The financial troubles of 1S.36, fell upon Mr. Prenti3S with great 
force. He lost by them a princely fortune. In consequence of these reverses, he 
removed to this city, as affording a larger sphere for the exercise of his talents. 
Here he immediately took his position among the foremost of our lawyers. Many 
gentlemen of the bar, of great eminence in States where the Common Law prevails, 
had not sustained here the reputation which they brought with them. Mr. Pren- 
tiss was an exception to this remark. The remarkable quickness and analytical 
power of his intellect, enabled him, in a very short time, to master the rules and 
theory of a system of jurisprudence quite different from that in which he had long 
been trained. He soon achieved a position at the bar of New Orleans as prominent 
as that he had occupied in Jlississippi. Nor was his mind " cribbed, cabined and 
confined " within the narrow limits of a mere professional life. He always identified 
himself with every project of patriotism, benevolence, charity, or literature, that was 
agitated in his vicinage. A monument to Franklin, or a sympathetic appeal in favor 
of struggling Hungary, or a donative response to the tearful orphan, or a commemo- 
ration of the birthday of the Bard of Avon, would equally fire his soul and syllable 
his tongue. He possessed one of the most highly-endowed intellects we ever knew. 
His memory was singularly retentive, so that he could repeat whole cantos of Byron 
on the moment. His logical faculty was very acute and discerning. It was often 
the complaint of the court and his brother lawyers, that he would argue a case all 
to pieces. He would penetrate to the very bottom of a subject, as it were, by intu- 
ition, and lay it bare in all its parts, like a chemist analyzing any material object, 
or a surgeon making a dissection. His reading was full and general, and every- 
thing he gathered from books, as well as from intercourse with his fellow-men, clung 
to his memory, and was ever at his command. But, his most striking talent was 
his oratory. We have never known or read of a man, who equalled Prentiss ia 
the faculty of thinking on his legs, or of extemporaneous eloquence. He required 
no preparation to speak on any subject, and on all he was equally happy. We 
have heard from him, thrown out in a dinner-speech, or at a public meeting, when 
unexpectedly called on, more brilliant and striking thoughts than many of the most 
gifted poets and orators ever elaborated in their closets. He possessed a rare wit. 
His garland was enwreathed with flowers culled from every shrub or plant, and 
from every clime. And if at times the thorn lurked beneath the bright flower, the 
wound it inflicted was soon assuaged and healed by some mirthful and laughter- 
moving palliative. 

But our article grows too long, and we must bring it to a close before we have 
said a tithe of what justice to the subject would require us to say. 

We conclude, therefore, with bearing tribute to the estimable character of S. S. 
Prentiss. His heart overflowed with warm, generous, and patriotic feelings. He 
was as brave and chivalrous as Bayard, — as soft, tender, and affectionate as a 
loving child, untainted by ttie selfishness of the world. AU small, selfish, narrow 
feehngs, were foreign to his nature. His bosom was the home of honor, — his imagi- 
nation was full of lofty thoughts, and his mind disdained the grovelling feelings and 
considerations of the worldly-minded. Let not his friends be inconsolable. 

It is proper that such a mind should thus glide from these scenes of worldly 
trouble. It is just that a bright exhalation, which has shone so brilliantly, should 



612 APPENDIX. 

disappear thus suddenly, ere it Degins gradually to fade and flicker ; «hat the fir. 
of so noble an intelligence, should not diminish, and gradually and stowly go out^ 
amid decrepitude and physical decay ; but that, like the meteor si,ooting acrosi 
the heavens, illuminating the earth, it should sink suddenly and for ever, into th« 
earth from which it sprung ! 

The followiDg is from riie pen of J. F. H, Claiborne, Esq., on« 
of Mr. PiiE^Tiss' opponents in the Mississippi contested election : 

This distinguished orator — distinguished above all his contemporaries for the 
versatility of his talents, the brilliancy of his imagination and the affluence of his 
diction — died, at Natchez, on Monday evening last, after a protracted illness. He 
was not more than thirty-five years of age, but had already placed himself on an 
equality with the giants of the land. In the firmament of the Republic there shone 
no brighter star. He was endowed with more genius than any man we ever met 
with — the genius that comprehends all things, achieves all things, and perishes, as 
the hero of Macedonia perished, because there are no more difficulties to overcome, 
" no more worlds to conquer." Mr. Prentiss, in addressing a jury, has never been 
surpassed ; pith, pathos, humor, fiery declamation, biting sarcasm, wonderful 
power of illustration, were the characteristics of his oratory on these occasions, 
and so expressive were his action and the play of his countenance, that even when 
you failed to hear him, you comprehended what he had said. His great forte was 
in the analysis of a point of law, or the discussion of a constitutional question. 
His style then became terse, simple, severe, exhibiting a mental discipline and a 
faculty of concentration, in striking contrast with the natural exuberance of his 
fancy. It was observed of Apelles' Venus that her flesh looked as if she had been 
nourished on roses ; the same maybe said of the orations of this remarkable man. 
"Whenever he touched on literature or art, his classical taste sparkled in every 
sentence ; images tinted with the colors of the rainbow, dew-drops of thought, the 
very essence of poetry, fell profusely from his lips. The only speech he ever made 
in Congress, on a question of peculiar delicacy and importance, placed him at once 
among the greatest orators of our time; and even his opponents appUed to him 
the remark of Coleridge ou Canning — " that he flashed such a light around the 
constitution, it was difficult to see the luins of the fallen fabric through it." With 
so much genius, Mr. Prentiss might have become eminent in any pursuit — as a 
poet, an artist or a soldier. He had all the elements of greatness, and all the 
ambition to become great. But the orb that burned so brightly has disappeared ; 
the tones that charmed, the clarion voice that roused, are silent, and for ever. 
With his fire unquenched — his aspirations unsatisfied —his mission unfulfilled — the 
harvest of wealth and power still ungathered — the reaper, in his pride of manhood, 
has been struck down by the only enemy that could conquer him, and now lies 
low as the undistinguished dead, to teach us " what shadows we are and what 
shadows we pursue." Friends and enemies deplore the gallantry of feelings which 
gave to his views a chivalrous elevation ; those beautiful accomplishments which 
embellished the society in which he lived ; the fire and sparkling wit which fascinated 
those who were most adverse to his principles, and charmed, as with a spell, the 
very men who were most aware of its seductions. 



APPENDIX. 6t3 



PROCEEDINGS OF THE BAR OP NATCHEZ. 

Extract from the Minutes of the Vice-Chancery Court, of the Soutiern District of 

Mississippi, at 

Natchez, July 2, 1S50. 

On the meeting of the Yice Chancery Court this morning, Mr. McMurran 
fcnnounced to the Court the death of the Hon. Seargent S. Prentiss, late a most 
distinguished member of the Bar of this State. After some feeling and appropriate 
remarks on the melancholy event, he moved the Vice Chancellor that as a tribute 
of respect for the memory of the deceased, the court adjourn. 

Whereupon his Honor, sympathizing with the Bar ou the occasion, adjourned the 
Court until to-morrow morning at 9 o'clock. 

Immediately after the adjournment of the Court, the members of the Bar of the 
State in attendance on the Vice-Chancery Court, at Natchez, were, on motion of 
R. M. Gaines, Esq., organized as a meeting, with his Honor, James M. Smiley, as 
Chairman, and on motion of H. S. Eustis, Esq., Mr. Gaines was appointed Secretary. 

On motion of George S. Yerger, Esq. it was 

Beaol/ced, Tliat a Committee of live be appointed by the Chairman to prepare 
and report a preamble and resolutions expressive of the sense of the meeting on 
the melancholy occasion. 

Whereupon the Chair appointed George S. Yerger, of Vicksburg ; John T. 
McMurran and J. S. Thacher, of Natchez; Geo. H. Gordon, of Woodville; and John 
B. Coleman, of Port Gibson, 

After a recess until 12 o'clock, the Committee, through their chairman, Mr. Yer 
ger, reported the following Preamble and Resolutions, which were unanimously 
adopted : 

This Meeting has heard, with feelings of deep and heartfelt sorrow, that it haa 
pleased Almighty God, in his all-wise providence, to remove by death, from his 
sphere of usefulness on earth, our lamented brother and friend, the Hon. Seargent 
S. Prentiss. His loss is no ordinary one— long will it be felt, not only by his 
bereaved family and friends, but by Uie community at large, and by the profession 
of which he was a bright and noble ornament. Of him it may be truly said, he 
was one of God's noblest works, " an honest man.'' If an intellecj and genius 
which it is the lot of but few to possess — if a heart, susceptible of the noblest emo- 
tions, and whose every pulsation was the echo of the purest feelings of patriotism 
and devotion to his country — if the prayers of an afflicted and devoted family, 
could have saved him from the doom, which sooner or later awaits us all, our 
.lamented friend would yet be among us. But he is gone — and his death is but 
another memento of the mortality of the body— the immortality of the soul. This, 
however, is not the time nor the place for eulogy ; deeper and holier emotions 
possess our hearts. Therefore, as a tribute of esteem and respect for his memory— 

Resolved, That the members of this meeting are filled with the most profound 
grief at the loss of a most brilliant and distinguished member of their profession. 

Resolved, That for many years the deceased stood at the head of his profession 
in Miseissippi, as a sound and able Jurist, with quick, clear, and comprehensive 
perceptions of the principles of Justice, and that as a forensic orator, he has been 
unsurpas.sed and unrivalled. 

Resolved, That in his private and sccial intercourse, be was amiable and con- 



6t4 APPENDIX. 

fiding, and generous to a fault. Few men have acquired more FiUmerous and 
devoted personal attachmc-uts ; few have ever descended to the grave more 
deeply lamented. 

liesolved, That we affectionately sympathize with, and tender to his afflicted 
and bereaved family our sincere rondolemcnts upon their irreparable loss. 

Besol/ced, That the members of the Bar here present, will attend the funeral 
of the deceased, as a token of their respect for the memory of their distinguished 
brother. 

Resolved, That the chairman of this meeting, transmit to the family of the de- 
ceased, a copy of the proceedings of this meeting. 

Resolved, That the Yice Chancellor he requested to have tlie proceedings of this 
meeting spread upon the minutes of this Court. 

On motion — 

Resolved, That the proceedings of this meeting, after being signed by the Chair- 
man and Secretary, and also the proceedings of the Court in relation to the death 
of the Hon. Seargent S. Prextiss, be published in the newspapers of the City. 

J. M. SMILEY, Chairman. 

R. M. Gaixds, Secretary. 

■Wednesday, July 3, 1S50. 
At a meeting of the District Vice Chancery Court, this morning, on motion, it was 
Ordered, By the Vice Chancellor, that the proceedings of the meeting of the bar 
in relation to the death of the lion. Searge>'t S. Prentiss, be entered on the minutes 
of the Court. 
"Which was done accordingly. 

E. S. Russell, Clerk. 

PROCEEDINGS OP THE BAR OF JACKSON. 

Jackson, Monday, July 15, 1850. 

Pursuant to notice, the members of the Jackson Bar assembled in the court room 
of the Chancery Court, to take some measures to express their sentiments relative 
to the decease of the Hon. Seargent S. Prentiss. 

On motion. Col. J. P. Foute was called to the Chair, and L. V. Dixon appointed 
Secretary. After a few remarks from the Chair, more expressive of the object of 
the meeting, on motion, William Yeiger, John I. Guion, Caswell R. Clifton, and 
Daniel W. Adams were appointed a Committee to prepare a suitable preamble and 
resolutions, who reported the following, which were unanimously adopted: 

The members of this Bar have learned with unfeigned sorrow, that their former 
coQipanion and brother, the Hon. Seargent S. Prentiss, has departed this life. For 
upwards of fifteen years Mr. Prentiss was a citizen of theState of Mississippi, and 
during that period he established a reputation for legal learning and ability, for 
high-souled and chivalrous patriotism, and for spotless integrity and unsullied 
honor, which will endure as long as such qualities and virtues are cherished among 
us. As an orator, the reputation of .Mr. Prentiss is national. As a lawyer, the 
judicial annals of our country have been illustrated by no brighter name or Voftier 
intellect. As a politician, he received the unlimited confidence and support of one 
great party, while his political opponents accorded to him unquestionable integrity 
of purpose and sincere devotion to his country. It is a source of pleasure and of 



APPENDIX. 575 

pride to Lis friends to recount these things. Yet to the members oi this Bar, who 
knew him well and intimately, his social qualities and the generous impulses of a 
heart whicl) always beat responsive to every sentiment of honor, friendship, man- 
liness and truth, render his name more dear than the brightest achievements of hid 
Intellect, — therefore, 

1. Resolved, That as an orator, a statesman and a jurist, the fame of Mr. Pren- 
tiss will adorn the brightest page in the history of the Republic. 

2. Resolved, That the name of Prentiss is identified with the history of Missis- 
sippi, and his memory will be forever cherished among the dearest and worthiest 
of her sons. 

3. Resolved, That in the death of Mr. Prentiss, the legal profession has lost one 
of its brightest ornaments, and the members of this Bar have lost a friend, en- 
deared to them by every manly and social virtue which could add to the enjoyment 
of professional intercourse. 

4. Resolved, That as a tribute of respect to the memory of the deceased, the 
membei-s of this Bar will wear the usual badge of mourning for thirty days ; and 
that John I. Guion, Charles Scott and Daniel Mayes be appointed a committee to 
present the foregoing preamble and resolutions to the Supreme and Chancery 
Courts, and ask that they be entered on the minutes of each of said courts. 

5. Resolved, That Jolin I. Guion be requested at the January session of the High 
Court of Errors and Appeals, to deliver an address, commemorative of the distin- 
guished abilities and the exalted private virtues of the deceased.* 

6. Resolved, That a copy of tliese resolutions be forwarded to the family of Mr. 
Prentiss, with the assurance of the sincere condolence of the members of this Bar 
in their great bereavement. 

7. Resolved, That the city papers be requested to publish these proceedings. 

J. P. FOUTE, President. 
L. V. Dixon, Secretary. 

The Proceedings of the Bar of Vicksburg are not at band. 

EUI.OGY ON S. S. PRENTISS, BY JUDGE McCALEB. 

In November, 1850, the resolutions of the Bar of New Orleans 
were presented to the United States District Court by Mr. Hun- 
ton, tlie U. S. District Attorney. Mr. H. made a brief address, 
from Avhich the following passages are taken: 

May ii please the Court — Since your adjournment in July, a distinguished mem- 
ber of the Bar has terminated his earthly career — has been summoned from this to 



* I am not aware that the eulogy was ever delivered. The death of Judge Guion 
is announced, as these pages go to the press. He was a gentleman of most noble 
qualities, and a lawyer of superior ability. At the time of his decease he occupied 
a seat on the Bench of Mississippi, as he had done in earlier manhood. He had 
also filled various civil offices ; having been President of the Senate, and, for a 
short period. Governor of the State. He belonged, I believe, to an old Huguenol 
family of South Carolina. His attachment to Mr. PrentIss was like that of a 
brother, and it was most warmly reciprocated. He will long live in the memory of 
a wide and cultivated circle of Iricods. — Eu. 



576 APPENDIX. 

a higher tribunal ; ana at a meeting of the members of the Bar of New Orleans, 
on the occasion of his death, resolutions were adopted expressing regret and sor- 
row for his loss and admiration for him as a man and a lawyer. 

I hare been requested to present these resolutions, and to ask that they be In- 
scribed on the records of the Court, which I now do. * * * ♦ ♦ 

Under otlier circumstances it would give me mournful pleasure to trace the bril- 
liant career of that extraordinary man from the time when he arrived in Missis- 
sippi, the poor, friendless, stranger boy, till the period of his death — to delineate 
his character — to tell how, at a single leap, he bounded from obscurity to renown, 
from the very foot to the topmost round of the ladder of Fame — and to show how, 
by his indomitable spirit and mighty mind, he was enabled to maintain, against all 
competitors, that proud position he so suddenly yet so honorably won. 

His was a life of constant struggles and of action, lie was always engaged in 
the heat and dust of professional or political efforts. In these efforts he perhaps 
sometimes indulged in unwarrantable invective and bitterness ; yet, I believe all 
who knew him will bear testimony with me, that after the excitement of deabte 
was over, he had no memory for anything he had uttered against his adversary; he 
bore no malice ; indeed his breast was filled with the milk of human kindness ; he 
was generous to his foes, faithful to his friends, and devoted to his clients — he made 
their cause his own. 

H« came amongst us here with a reputation as a popular orator, almost unequalled 
in the Southwest; his fame as an advocate had extended all over the Republic ; liis 
claims however to high rank as a lawyer were questioned and contested, yet he 
very soon gave unerring proofs that he was not only the brilliant advocate, but 
was a sound, acute, and discriminating lawyer ; l?^s reputation as such was advanc- 
ing with steady progress, he was widening and deepening the foundations of hia 
legal learning. Rich imaginative faculties with high intellectual endowments of 
solid order were united in the mind of Mr. Prentiss in a higher degree than I have 
e/er known in any other man. 

Of his social qualities, his sparkling wit, his humor, his unchanging cheerfulness, 
1 forbear to speak. His eloquent voice will no more be heard; his bright face will 
no more be seen in these halls. When such a man dies, it is meet and proper that 
we pause for an instant and take note of the event. I therefore move that these 
resolutions be placed on the enduring records of the court. 

Judge McCaleb, an old and liighly honored friend of Mr. 
Prentiss, ordered the resolutions to be so entered, and then de- 
livered the following touching eulogy : 

In granting the motion just made by the District Attorney, I shall be excused, I 
trust, if I embrace the occasion to make a few remarks. 

Amid the painful regrets we experience at the loss of Mr. Prentiss, we can still 
dwell with a melancholy pleasure upon his many noble qualities of head and heart. 
As the learned, able, and eloquent advocate, he was at all times the object of our 
warmest admiration ; as the kind and confiding friend, the honorable and chivalric 
gentleman, he had secured our affectionate and lasting regards. In our sorrowful 
reflections upon his departure from the active scenes of life, we can truly say, thai 
a lawyer of extensive and profouni acquirements, an orator of rar# powers of 



APPENDIX. 57t 

argumentation and of most brilliant fancy, a man of unsnllied honor, a patriot of 
ardent devotion and undaunted courage, and a friend whose generosity knew nd 
bounds, has prematurely passed from the theatre of his usefulness and his fame. 

The intellectual endowments of Mr. Prentiss presented a remarkable example, in 
which great logical powers and the most vivid imagination were happily blended. 
With all his readiness in debate, he never failed when an opportunity offered to 
enter into the most laborious investigations to obtain the mastery of a subject. If 
he frequently sought to amuse, he rarely failed at the same time to instruct an 
audience. The rapidity with which he seized the strong points of a case, added to 
his untiring assiduity, rendered him at all times a most formidable adversary. 

In happy exhibitions of extemporaneous eloquence, in striking illustrations by a 
rapid and harmonious succession of brilliant metaphors, he was rarely if ever ex- 
celled. But those who regarded him as a merely eloquent declaimer were widely 
mistaken in their estimate of his powers. His honorable zeal in the assertion of 
the rights of a client, his high professional pride, his respect for an adversary and 
the court, prompted him, in all cases of importance, to a diligent and careful pre- 
paration. His own wonderful powers of illustration were at all times supported by 
the solemn mandates of authority ; and the facility with which he was wont to call 
to his aid the thoughts or effusions of others, proves him to have been a student of 
an extraordinary memory, and of unremitting diligence. His ideas of intellectua. 
excellence were formed by an attentive study of the best models ; and those who 
eryoyed with him the pleasures of social intercourse, are aware with what humility 
and veneration he paid his devotions at the shrine of ancient genius. No man 
with all his admiration of modern excellence, was more prompt in according supe- 
riority to those master spirits of antiquity whom modern genius, with all its boasted 
progress, has yet signally failed to outstrip in the race of true greatness and glory. 

It was in 1S45 that Mr. Prentiss removed from the State of Mississippi to this 
city, with the view to a permanent residence among us, and for the purpose of pur- 
suing the practice of his profession. He came with a brilliant reputation as a law- 
yer and an orator, and I think it will be admitted by every candid mind, that the 
public voice in other sections of the Union was not extravagant in its estimate of 
his abilities. His almost unprecedented success as an advocate before the tribunals 
of Mississippi ; his eloquent efforts in the political arena, before large popular as- 
semblages in different parts of the country, and in the hall of the House of Repre- 
sentatives of the United States, had gained him universal applause, and indispu- 
tably established his claima to the possession of talents of the highest order. It 
was my good fortune to be present at the Capitol at Washington in 1S38, during the 
long and exciting debate which arose out of the Mississippi contested election. The 
most prominent champions who entered the lists on that interesting occasion, were 
Mr. Prentiss himself, then claiming his seat, and Mr. Legare, the distinguished 
jurist and scholar from South Carolina. It Is neither my province nor desire to 
decide to whom belonged the chaplet of victory. It is sufficient to say that the 
powerful and brilliant efforts of Mr. Prentiss in the defence of his trying and import- 
ant position as challenger of all comers, received the most enthusiastic encomia 
from political friends and foes ; and I take pleasure in testifying that from none 
did I hear a more unqualified expression of approbation than was given to me 
subsequently in a social interview, by the generous and accomplished antagonist to 
whom I have alluded. 

The speech of Mr. Frentiss on that occasion was published in the Journals of tht 

VOL. II. 25 



578 



APPENDIX. 



day, and Is among the very few of his remarkable exhibitions of argument and 
oratory remaining for the admiration of posterity. 

We are told by Macaulay, in his elegant review of the writings of Sir William 
Temple, that " of the parliamentary eloquence of the celebrated rivals (Shaftsbury 
and Halifax), we can judge only by report." * * * " Halifax is described by 
Dryden as 

• Of piercing wit and pregnant thought, 
Endowed by nature and by learning taught, 
To move assemblies ;' 

» 

Yet his oratory is utterly and irretrievably lost to us, like that of Somers, of Bwl- 
Ingbroke, of Charles Townshend— of many others, who were accustomed to rise 
amidst the breathless expectation of senates, and to sit down amidst reiterated 
bursts of applause. Old men, who had lived to admire the eloquence of Pultney 
in its meridian, and that of Pitt in Its splendid dawn, still murmured that they had 
heard nothing like the great speeches of Lord Halifax on the Exclusion Bill.' 
These observations on what must ever be regarded as most important omissions in 
the annals of parliamentary and forensic eloquence in England, remind us forcibly 
of similar omissions in our own history — omissions the more to be regretted be- 
cause they deprive us forever, as in the case of our lamented friend, of the noble 
sentiments luminously arrayed, of those with whom for years we have daily enjoyed 
the delights of social intercourse. 

In the case of Mr. Pbentiss, the omission is the more unaccountable, and pe*-hap8 
the more unpardonable, because of the great advantages he possessed of a finished 
education, and of his extraordinary readiness as a writer as well as a speaker. It 
was indeed a source of regret among his countless admirers, that with all his pro- 
fessional pride, with all his aspirations for professional distinction, and all his •\m- 
bition for victory in the political arena, he should have manifested such utter in- 
difference to posthumous fame. He was sensitive In everything relating to hia 
character as an honorable man ; he was careful to preserve untarnished the fair 
escutcheon of an honorable name ; yet in the great intellectual conflicts in which 
he was so frequently engaged, he was content with the contemporary applause so 
bountifully bestowed, and looked no further. Posterity indeed will never be able 
to appreciate his intrinsic worth ; but his powerful logic, his brilliant wit, the radi- 
ant coruscations of his fancy, his keen sarcasm and his melting pathos will bt 
treasured in the grateful recollections of those who were permitted to witness thoii 
effect. They will long be remembered as the 

Fruits of a genial morn and glorious noon, 
A deathless part of him who died too soon. 

I have alluded to the professional pride of Mr-. Prentiss. No man regarded with 
more profound veneration the luminaries of the law, and no man was more emu- 
lous of their triumphs. He felt that the science itself presented the noblest field 
for the exertion of the intellectual faculties, and was deeply sensible of the high 
responsibilities assumed by all who embark in it as a means of acquiring a liveli- 
hood. He treated with scorn the vulgar prejudices against it, founded upon th# 
faults or delinquencies of itg unworthy members. It was the profession which, 'o 



APPENDIX. 579 

hts opinion, furnished the materials to form the statesman. It was the profession 
from which the patriot could proyide the most efficient weapons to vindicate tha 
freedom and honor of his country. The boldest and most devoted champions of 
popular liberty, in every civilized age, and every civilized clime, were, in his 
opinion, to be found in the ranks of the legal profession. He believed that in our 
own country they aflforded one of the strongest bonds of our National Union. His 
sentiments on this subject were delivered with characteristic energy and zeal, and 
were suggested by the invitation with which he had been honored by the Law Asso- 
ciation of Harvard University to deliver the address at its annual celebration. I 
can never forget the feelings of gratified pride he expressed on the reception of 
that invitation, or the emotions of regret he betrayed at being compelled, by his 
feeble health, to decline it. Had his physical strength been adequate to the task, 
Petrarch in the solitudes of Vaucluse, never responded with a prouder enthusiasm 
to the summons from the metropolis of the world, to receive in its capital and from 
the hands of a Senator of Rome, the laurel crown as the reward of poetic merit 
than would our gifted orator have obeyed the request of the members of his noble 
profession in that ancient University. But the triumph of Petrarch was not re- 
served for our fritnd. His melancholy fate more solemnly reminds us of that other 
devoted child of Italian song, who had "poured his spirit over Palestine," and 
whose summons to the honors of the laurel wreath was but a summons to his grave. 
We feel that it was but yesterday we beheld our friend here in this hall in the 
ardent and energetic discharge of his professional duties, with a countenance pale 
and emaciated, but radiant with the fire of genius — with a frame feeble and 
exhausted from the cruel ravages of disease, but with a spirit undaunted — a mind 
ever luminous, and exhibiting in every effort its almost superhuman energy. His 
mighty soul seemed "swelling beyond the measure of the chains" that bound it 
within its frail tenement. His surrender at last to the King of Terrors was the 
result of another victory of genius over a favorite son, and forcibly recalls the line* 
of the poet, in allusion to the death of a kindred spirit : 

" 'Twas thy own genius gave the final blow, 
And helped to plant the wound that laid thee low ; 
So the struck eagle, stretched upon the plain, 
No more through rolling clouds to soar again, 
Viewed his own feather in the fatal dart. 
And winged the shaft that quivered in his heart." 

Amid the excitement of the forum he was unconscious of the rapid decay of the 
organs of life. Heedless alike of the solemn admonitions of friends and the increas- 
ing debility of an overtasked and broken constitution, he continued, day after day, 
to redouble his exertions, and seemed to regulate his physical action by the mighty 
energies of a mind that scorned all sympathy with the feeble frame on which it waa 
dependent for support. One of the most important arguments made by him before 
this tribunal — I allude to that in the case of the heirs of Pultney vs. The City of 
Lafayette — was delivered from his seat; his declining health rendering it impossi- 
ble for him to stand in the presence of the court ; and yet, I may with confidence 
appeal to his able and generous antagonist on that occasion, to bear testimony to 
the systematic arrangement and masterly ability with which every argument, and 



i 



580 



APPENDIX. 



all the learning that could tend to the elucidation of the important qaestioc 
involved, were presented to the court. 

I have thus, gentlemen of the Bar, in a manner perhaps somewhat unusual 
though I trust not inappropriate to the occasion, availed myself of the opportunitj 
afforded by the presentation of your eloquent resolutions to mingle my own feeble 
voice with the strains of eulogy which have already been heard, in heartfelt tri- 
butes to private and public worth ; to add my own humble offering at the shrin 
of genius ; to hang my own garland of sorrow over the tomb of a long-cherished 
friend : 

" To mourn the vanished beam — and add my mite 
Of praise, in payment of a long delight." 

The following letter of Mr. Clay will be here in place : 



Mt Dear Sib: — 

At the moment of my leaving Newport, I received your friendly letter 
in respect to the death of your lamented brother, S. S. Prentiss. I had previously 
heard of the sad event, with emotions of sorrow and grief, which have been rarely 
exceeded in my breast by any similar occurrence. Ilia loss to his estimable wife 
and his infant children, to yourself and his amiable and intelliger.t sister, to his 
beloved mother, to his numerous friends (and to none more than me), and to his 
country, which he so much loved and so ably served, can never be repaired. 

I derived a melancholy satisfaction from perusing your narrative of the incidents 
attending the last hours of his mortal existance. 

I am glad that you have resolved to prepare for publication some memorials of 
your noble brother. His memory is fully worthy of it, and the work could not be 
in more competent and faithful hands. I should be very happy to comply with 
your wish that I would supply some estimate of your brother's character and 
talents, if I felt myself qualified to do ample justice t'o them. But, intimate as was 
our friendship, it so happened that I never heard him, except on three occa- 
sions — once, when he was addressing the House of Representatives on his own 
contested election from Mississippi; when he addressed me, in your presence, 
at Vicksburg; and on the subject of the famine in Ireland, at the public meeting in 
New Orleans, where we both spoke. We had but few opportunities of personal 
Intercourse. For at New Orleans, where I passed two winters after hia removal to 
that city, he was so engrossed by his professional engagements, that I met with him 
occasionally, and then chiefly at dinner, at the house of some friend. Several 
letters reciprocally passed between us, all relating to public affairs, except one, and 
that related to a pai*-ful affair which he had with a grandson of mine, which waa 
happily accommodated. In .hat letter he expressed, in manly terms, his regret at 
the occurrence, and his satisfaction with its honorable and amicable termination, in 
which his friendly relations to me exercised a proper influence. I am very sorry 
that I have not preserved any of his letters. 

If I were to express, in a few words, my impression of your brother's mental 
character, as a public speaker, I should say that he was distinguished by a rich; 
chaste and boundless imagination, tha exhaustless resources of which, in beautiful 
'anguage and happy illustrations, he brought to the aid of a logical power, which 



APPENDIX. 681 

he wielded to a very great extent. Always ready and prompt, his conceptions 
seemed to me almost intuitive. His voice was fine, softened and, I think, improved, 
by a slight lisp, which an attentive ohserver could discern. 

The great theatres of eloquence and public speaking in the United States are the 
the Legislative Hall, the Forum and the Stump, without adverting to the Pulpit. 
I have known some of my contemporaries eminently successful on one of these 
theatres, without being able to exliibit any remarkable ability on the others. Your 
brother was brilliant and successful on them ail. 

* * • Requesting you to present my aflfectionate regards to your 

Bister, 

I am truly, 
Washington, Sejp. 1850. Your friend, Ac. 

H, Clat. 

The following is an extract from a letter of ex-Gov. Crit- 
tenden, dated Wasiiingtox, I^ov. 20, 1850 : 

I was a sincere sympathizer in the grief that was felt so widely at the death of 
your talented and noble brother, S. S. Prentiss. I knew him — and it was impossible 
to know him without feeling for him admiration and love. His genius, so rich and 
rare ; his heart, so warm, generous, and magnanimous ; and his manners, so grace- 
ful and so genial, couid not fail to mipress those sentiments on all who approached 
him. Hoquence was part of his nature, and over his private conversations as 
well as his public speeches, it scattered its sparkling jewels with more than royal 
profusion. Although our relations were always most friendly, it so happened that 
our correspondence by writing was very inconsiderable, and furnishes nothing, I 
regret to say, that could aid you in the fraternal task in which I am glad to see 
you are engaged, of preparing a biography or memoir of your deceased brother. 
I feel the liveliest interest in the success of your undertaking, and hope that the 
monument you will thus erect to his memory, may be as high and as bright as were 
his virtues and his genius. 

Mr. Webster wrote to me from Marshfield, some time before 
his death : " After my return to Washington, I will take much 
pleasure in conveying to you the estimate, entertained by me, of 
the cliaracter and talents of your lamented brother." But the 
pressure of pubhc cares hindered the fulfillment of this friendly 
promise, until it was too late. 



THE END. 



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